Return of Carvajal

About Return of Carvajal

Return of Carvajal, written by Ilan Stavans and featuring illustrations by the artist Eko, provides a detailed account of the historical significance and the eventual recovery of the memoirs belonging to Luis de Carvajal the Younger. Luis de Carvajal the Younger was a Marrano, or crypto-Jew, living in sixteenth-century colonial Mexico. His writings, which include his memoirs, letters, and a spiritual testament, are recognized by historians as the earliest known Jewish autobiography in the Americas. These documents offer a firsthand perspective on the religious persecution and secret Jewish practices occurring under the jurisdiction of the Spanish Inquisition in the New World.

The narrative specifically examines the disappearance of these manuscripts from the National Archives of Mexico in 1932. For several decades, the location of the original documents remained unknown to the public and the academic community. The book chronicles the events surrounding their reappearance in 2016 when the manuscripts surfaced at an auction house in New York City. Following their identification by experts, the documents were repatriated to Mexico, an event that sparked renewed scholarly interest in Carvajal’s life and the broader history of the Sephardic diaspora in Latin America.

Stavans and Eko utilize a collaborative format that blends historical analysis with visual storytelling. The text explores Carvajal’s trial and execution at the stake in 1596, while Eko’s illustrations provide a visual interpretation of the spiritual and physical struggles described in the memoirs. By documenting both the colonial-era origin of the texts and their twenty-first-century recovery, the work serves as a record of the preservation of Jewish cultural heritage. It details the provenance of the physical artifacts