El Iluminado: A Mystery of Santa Fe

In this entertaining, thought-provoking detective graphic novel set in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a fictional Ilan Stavans seeks to solve a murder and locate a lost manuscript by a prominent 16th-century Crypto-Jew burned at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition.

When young Rolando Perez falls to his death from a cliff outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, the mysteries immediately begin to accumulate. Was he pushed or did he jump? What might Rolando have been so desperate to protect that he would sacrifice himself? And what does a colorful concha pastry have to do with any of this?

In the midst of the investigation, Professor Ilan Stavans arrives in Santa Fe to give a lecture about the area's long-buried Jewish history. He's looking forward to relaxing afterward with an evening at the opera, but his presentation on "crypto-Jews" attracts unexpected attention, and soon Ilan is drawn into a desperate race to find the long-lost documents that might hold the key to Rolando's death. His amateur sleuthing leads him to taco joints, desert ranches, soaring cathedrals, and, finally, deep into the region's past, where he encounters Luis de Carvajal, also called "El Iluminado." In a sixteenth-century tale of martyrdom that eerily echoes Rolando's, Carvajal fled Spain for colonial Mexico at the height of the Spanish Inquisition, searching for his religious heritage--a hunt for which he, like Rolando, would pay the ultimate price.

In El Iluminado, esteemed literary critic Ilan Stavans and author and illustrator Steve Sheinkin present a secret history of religion in the Americas, showing how thousands of European refugees have left a trail of ghostly footprints--and troves of mysteries--across the American Southwest. This paperback edition includes a new afterword recounting the amazing events that occurred after the original publication, including the real-life discovery of the long-lost memoir of Luis de Carvajal and its restoration to Mexico.

Author: Ilan Stavans,Steve Sheinkin
Publisher: Unm Press
Published: 03/17/2026
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 9.90h x 7.00w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780826369185

About the Author
Internationally renowned scholar, essayist, linguist, translator, editor, and cultural commentator Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American, and Latino Culture at Amherst College. He serves as the series editor for the University of New Mexico Press's acclaimed Jewish Latin America Series.

Steve Sheinkin is the award-winning author of three graphic novels featuring Rabbi Harvey, a fictional rabbi who also functions as an Old West sheriff. His nonfiction books include Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon and The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights, which were both National Book Award finalists.