Denis Tillinac : the Don Quixote myth at the turn of the 21st century

Abstract

Ahead of the fourth centenary of the publication of part I of Don Quixote, the French author Denis Tillinac and the watercolourist Yan Meot had toured La Mancha and in 2005 published La Manche de Don Quichotte. Tillinac's reflections on Cervantes's legendary character are important for two reasons. They imply that Don Quixote is a point of reference for characters that Tillinac himself had created in his own novels, such as Le jeu et la chandelle. Besides, due to the fact that Tillinac is a political commentator, Don Quixote is invested with a European mission and becomes a moral force for our troubled twenty-first century.