Discovering the ‘Guerrero
Instituto Cervantes Albuquerque is organising a double presentation in New Mexico and Texas of the latest novel by José Ángel Mañas: Guerrero, published in English by the University of New Mexico Press (UNM Press) and distributed nationally in the United States.
After the publication of Conquistadores de lo imposible, one of the best novels ever written about the conquest of America, Mañas delves once again into the modern era and recreates, with this absolutely real story, what is perhaps the most singular life event in the whole of Spanish-American history: the story of Gonzalo Guerrero, known as ‘the renegade’, a Spaniard who, after being shipwrecked on the Yucatán peninsula, where he was captured by the indigenous Mayan population, ended up marrying the princess Za'asil and later fought against the Spaniards themselves.
Both presentations, to be held at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque (NM) and the University of Texas at El Paso UTEP (TX) in collaboration with the University of New Mexico (UNM), are part of the Oralidad programme, through which the Cervantes Institute promotes the culture of oral tradition and storytellers.
The author will be accompanied in Albuquerque by the executive director of the Instituto Cervantes Albuquerque Silvia Grijalba and the director of the UNM Press Stephen Hull, and in El Paso by UTEP associate professor Andrea Cote.
Argument:
In January 1512, a caravel full of gold and Indian slaves sinks in a fierce storm. A small group of survivors including Guerrero wash up on a beach in Yucatán. Captured by Cocome Mayans, some are sacrificed; the rest are enslaved. Two survive: the young priest Jerónimo de Aguilar and the seasoned soldier Guerrero. They are redeemed by the rival and more sympathetic Tutul Xiúe Mayans. Jerónimo clings to his prayerbook, while Gonzalo becomes fascinated with Mayan culture and religion, joining with his new Mayan family to fight against Spanish conquest. For his crime, he is wiped from the record books of colonial Spain. Though little is known of Guerrero today, in this masterful short novel he becomes a larger-than-life figure of resistance and honor.