Quichotte
"Quichotte, an aging traveling salesman obsessed with the "unreal real" of TV, falls in impossible love with a queen of the screen; while obsessively writing her love letters, he wishes an imaginary son, Sancho, into existence. Together they set off across America in Quichotte's trusty Chevy Cruze to find her and convince her of his love. Meanwhile, Quichotte's tragicomic story is being told by the author who created him: Brother, a mediocre spy novelist in the midst of a midlife crisis. As their stories intertwine, we are taken on a wild, picaresque journey through a country on the edge of moral and spiritual collapse. Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirize the culture of his time, Rushdie brings us a new twist on a classic. Quichotte is a profoundly human love story and a wickedly entertaining satire of a corrupt age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction. With unforgettable characters and riveting suspense, this dazzling novel showcases an essential storyteller at his brilliant best"--
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What you might want to know about Quichotte
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
An aging pharma salesman renames himself Quichotte, falls in love with a daytime talk show host he has never met, and drives across a hallucinatory America with the imaginary son he has wished into being.
Yes. Salman Rushdie's Quichotte (2019) is a contemporary American reimagining of Don Quixote, with the protagonist on a road trip to win a TV personality's love. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Reading Don Quixote helps you catch the structural parallels and homages, but Quichotte is designed to stand on its own. Salman Rushdie provides enough framing for new readers.
Quichotte was written by Salman Rushdie, published in 2019 by Seix Barral.
Quichotte is 416 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Quichotte takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
Quichotte is a standalone novel by Salman Rushdie, not part of a series.
Quichotte is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
