It is a journey through wondrous words that begins with Columbus's earliest explorations when he first "tests the heft and roundness of this earth against his infant head" by stepping from the edge of his rocking cradle to come up short on the boards of the nursery floor. Finley charts a course for us through the days at sea, through the voyage itself, its records and commentaries, into the fraught territory of Columbus' imaginary "Indies" and the representation of this New World on his return to Spain. This incisive and luminescent story, scrupulously grounded in sixteenth-century sources, illuminates the power that "naming" has to create a world - in this case a world still haunted by being the accidental Indies. It is a book about how we perceive and represent the world around us, about the creative and destructive power of Language. Through its elaboration of the rich and lively ironies of the Columbus story, The Accidental Indies looks at the nature of storytelling itself.

Marta Marín-Dòmine is an associate professor in the Department of Languages and Literatures and Director of the Centre for Memory and Testimony Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research is on the Spanish literature of concentration camps and on the field of memory representation of past violent events. She is presently working on a collaborative project to elaborate a Dictionary of Memory in Europe and Latin America.

Robert Finley's profile page

"Exquisitely written. The Accidental Indies is a brilliant and utterly original work of literature." - Eric Ormsby "I was utterly enchanted by The Accidental Indies. With humour, inventiveness and an exquisite gift for words, Robert Finley has rescued Columbus's adventures from the excesses of hagiography and the disparagements of outrage, and restored them, once again, to the realm of myth from whence they sprung." - Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading and The Dictionary of Imaginary Places "The Accidental Indies is a gem - it is boldly imagined and splendidly written." - John Casey, author of the National Book Award winner, Spartina "Imagine the infant Columbus vaulting out of his cradle, striking his head on the world, and spawning his megalomaniacal wanderlust. Thus Robert Finley begins his exquisite prose poem, The Accidental Indies, a fantasy of precise Language and provocative imagery. I suspect Finley of past lives or channeling or worse, because he seems to know what really happened heading westward over the water in 1492. You do not simply read this story, you ride it, relish it, and sometimes you find yourself IN it." - Dava Sobel, author of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter. "This is a beautiful book - a kind of magic, shamanic flight to find the inner meaning of Columbus. It is a work of literary power and rare imagination - a discovery of the great discoverer ... It is a rare combination of literature and history in a form that is daring and inspiring." - Hugh Brody, author of Maps & Dreams "The Accidental Indies reads with a lyricism and intelligence that is hard to match in other modern fictions. It could be classified along with Michael Ondaatje's Coming through Slaughter and Anne Michaels' Fugitive Pieces." - Carolyn Smart