Popol Vuh: A Retelling

by Ilan Stavans, Gabriela Larios (Illustrator), Homero Aridjis (Foreword by)

Overview

An inspired and urgent prose retelling of the Maya myth of creation by acclaimed Latin American author and scholar Ilan Stavans, gorgeously illustrated by Salvadoran folk artist Gabriela Larios and introduced by renowned author, diplomat, and environmental activist Homero Aridjis.

The archetypal creation story of Latin America, the Popol Vuh began as a Maya oral tradition millennia ago. In the mid-sixteenth century, as indigenous cultures across the continent were being threatened with destruction by European conquest and Christianity, it was written down in verse by members of the K’iche’ nobility in what is today Guatemala. In 1701, that text was translated into Spanish by a Dominican friar and ethnographer before vanishing mysteriously.

Cosmic in scope and yet intimately human, the Popol Vuh offers invaluable insight into the Maya way of life before being decimated by colonization—their code of ethics, their views on death and the afterlife, and their devotion to passion, courage, and the natural world. It tells the story of how the world was created in a series of rehearsals that included wooden dummies, demi-gods, and eventually humans. It describes the underworld, Xibalba—a place as harrowing as Dante’s hell—and relates the legend of the ultimate king, who, in the face of tragedy, became a spirit that accompanies his people in their struggle for survival.

Popol Vuh: A Retelling is a one-of-a-kind prose rendition of this sacred text that is as seminal as the Bible and the Qur'an, the Ramayana and the Odyssey. Award-winning scholar of Latin American literature Ilan Stavans brings a fresh creative energy to the Popol Vuh, giving a new generation of readers the opportunity to connect with this timeless story and with the plight of the indigenous people of the Americas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632062406
Publisher:	Restless Books
Publication date:	11/10/2020
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	626,232
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 6.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

On Borrowed Words, Spanglish, Dictionary Days, The Disappearance, and A Critic’s Journey. He has edited The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature, the three-volume set Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, among dozens of other volumes. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Chile’s Presidential Medal, the International Latino Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award. Stavans’s work, translated into twenty languages, has been adapted to the stage and screen. A cofounder of the Great Books Summer Program at Amherst, Stanford, Chicago, Oxford, and Dublin, he is the host of the NPR podcast "In Contrast."

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"At a time when so many of us ask ourselves about the end of the world as we know it, few books could be more relevant than this sacred text of the Maya. In a mesmerizing, illuminating new translation, Ilan Stavans brings to contemporary readers this lyrical epic, with its messages from a lost civilization obsessed, as ours should be, with the inevitable cycles of catastrophe and change. The Popol Vuh encourages us to contemplate the perpetual conflict between truth and falsehood, light and darkness, so that we may find the wisdom to emerge as better people."

—Ariel Dorfman, author of Death and the Maiden

"Popol Vuh is one of the seminal foundational 'texts' of the Americas before it became 'America'—and one so few of us really know much about. Again, Ilan Stavans is infusing the US of A with the cultures and stories that have been traditionally erased or ignored and forgotten. All I can say is, another amazing Stavans project!"

—Julia Alvarez, author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents

"The Popol Vuh is the great book of creation of the Maya K'iche' culture, and Ilan Stavans has embarked on an intrepid adventure of recreation; he returns to a myth of origin to endow it with vibrant topicality, proving that rewriting a legend is a way of bewitching time."

—Juan Villoro, author of God Is Round

“Many translators, scholars, and poets have brought us close to the radiant eminence of our Mayan origin story, the Popol Vuh. None touch its wondrous dynamism and epic elegance like Stavans and Larios. Free of the formal constraints of the K’iche’ original, Stavans’s delivers a masterful retelling that invites us into chimeric dreams: from the mischievous first peoples and the quests of those grown from seeds, to hybrid creatures and demi-god twins with battles lost and won. Larios’s dexterous admixture of cool washes and vibrant color palettes along with a K’iche’-inspired line-work aesthetic, further unzip our minds to a shared ancestral imaginary. Only my Guatemalan abuelita could cast such storytelling spells over me. Together, Stavans and Larios invite us all to dance as the children we once were and will become. A gift!”

—Frederick Luis Aldama, author of Long Stories Cut Short: Fiction from the Borderlands

“Ilan Stavans's retelling of this ancient and sacred story of the Mayan people is as exquisitely written as it is necessary.”

—Eduardo Halfon, author of Mourning

Editorial Reviews

Gripping and redolent from start to finish… Stavans’s style is both colloquial and subtly elevated. The same is true of Larios’s splendid illustrations, which would be worth the purchase price on their own.... Stavans and Larios have together done a service to… the English-speaking world by re-fashioning this rich and fascinating myth into an accessible and beautiful English-language volume to treasure.

Blogcritics

The enchanting illustrations stimulate the imagination, with the vibrant hues and rhythmic composition delightfully complementing these exciting tales of gods and heroes.”

Shelf Awareness - Grace Rajendran

Ilan Stavans is an inventive interpreter of the contemporary cultures of the Americas…. Cantankerous and clever, sprightly and serious, Stavans is a voracious thinker. In his writing, life serves to illuminate literature—and vice versa: he is unafraid to court controversy, unsettle opinions, make enemies. In short, Stavans is an old-fashioned intellectual, a brilliant interpreter of his triple heritage—Jewish, Mexican, and American.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

“…in the void created by the death of his compatriot Octavio Paz, Ilan Stavans has emerged as Latin America’s liveliest and boldest critic and most innovative cultural enthusiast.”
—The Washington Post

“Ilan Stavans has done as much as anyone alive to bridge the hemisphere’s linguistic gaps.”
—The Miami Herald

“A canon-maker.”
—The Chronicle of Higher Education

“Ilan Stavans is a maverick intellectual whose canonical work has already produced a whole array of marvels... His incisive essays are redefining Jewish literature.”
—The Forward

“Ilan Stavans is the rarest of North American writers—he sees the Americas whole. Not since Octavio Paz has Mexico given us an intellectual so able to violate borders, with learning and grace.”
—Richard Rodriguez

“In the multicultural rainbow that is contemporary America, no one may be more representative of the state of the union than Ilan Stavans.”
—Newsday

“Ilan Stavans may very well succeed in becoming the Octavio Paz of our age.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle

“A virtuoso critic with an exuberant, encyclopedic, restless mind.”
—The Forward

“Ilan Stavans has the sharp eye of the internal exile. Writing about the sometimes reluctant reconquista of North America by Spanish-speaking cultures or the development of his own identity, he deals with both the life of the mind and the life of the streets.”
—John Sayles

“Lively and intelligent, eclectic, sharp-tongued.”
—Peter Matthiessen

“I think Stavans has one of the best grips around on what makes Spanish America tick.”
—Gregory Rabassa

“Ilan Stavans is a disciple of Kafka and Borges. He accepts social identity broadly, in the most cosmopolitan terms… His impulse is to broaden, not to narrow; he finds understanding through complication of identity, not through the easy gestures of ethnic politics.”
—The New York Times

“Ilan Stavans has established himself as an invaluable commentator of literature.”
—Phillip Lopate

From the Publisher

The Popol Vuh is widely considered the Maya Bible, transmitted through three millennia, and in this exquisitely illustrated volume, Latin American literature scholar Stavans reimagines what is also known as the Mayan K’iche’ people’s text of creation. A roster of characters—the deities, lords, idols, white men, and K’iche’ people, as well as the animals, such as jaguar, vampire bat, centipede, and coyote in the book’s frontispiece—are helpful markers through this mystical, mythical landscape.

The National Book Review

2020-09-30
An illustrated retelling of the Mayan K’iche’ peoples’ text of creation.

This reimagination of the seminal text of K’iche’ mythology is the latest of many books by Latin American literature scholar Stavans, ranging from the history of Spanglish to studies of Gabriel García Márquez and Octavio Paz. Stavans’ work is “not a translation...but a recalibration” of the Popol Vuh, a text originally transcribed by Father Francisco Ximénez de Quesada, who arrived in today’s Chichicastenango, Guatemala, in 1701. Ximénez recorded the oral stories of creation told by the K’iche’ (or Quiché) people in phonetic Latin, which he then translated to Spanish. Stavans’ English translation attempts to modernize the language so that contemporary readers may slip into this mystical landscape of jungles and volcanoes, jaguars and feathered serpents, coyotes and people made of corn. Salvadoran illustrator Larios provides lush images to accompany stories of the Earth and the underworld, Xibalba, and the animals and gods that inhabit them. Magical capes, heads made of squash, flower-collecting ants, and messenger owls all turn the tides in K’iche’ history. Most important are Junajpu and Ixb’alanke, the hero twins, who avenge the deaths of their father and uncle by challenging the gods of the underworld to a ball game. The myth ends with the arrival of the bearded White man, which King Q’uq’umatz foresees in fear: “There will be blood running through the rivers. Mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers shall perish.” There are as many gods as in Greek or Roman mythology, and a list of characters is provided to guide the reader. Still, it may be difficult to grapple with the profundity of these stories without some knowledge of the history of the region.

A beautiful interpretation of pivotal Central American history told through contemporary illustration and language.

Kirkus Reviews