The University of Arizona Press
Thunderweavers/ Tejedoras de rayos
Paperback ($17.95), Ebook ($17.95)
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The highlands of Chiapas are smoldering with death.
In the winter of 1997, paramilitary agents ambushed and killed many Mayan villagers in Acteal, Chiapas. Gifted writer Juan Felipe Herrera has composed a stirring poem sequence—published in a bilingual format—written in response and homage to those who died, as well as to all those who call for peace and justice in the Mexican highlands and throughout the Americas.
The sections are written in the voices of four women from a family in Chiapas: Xunka, a lost twelve-year-old girl; Pascuala, the mother; grandmother Maruch; and Makal, an older daughter who is pregnant. Each voice weaves into the others and speaks for still other members of the larger Mayan and Native American family.
Thunderweavers is a story of violent displacements in the lives of the most impoverished residents of southern Mexico.Through these words, readers will learn the meaning of transcendence and continuity in the midst of chaos, suffering, and war.
In the winter of 1997, paramilitary agents ambushed and killed many Mayan villagers in Acteal, Chiapas. Gifted writer Juan Felipe Herrera has composed a stirring poem sequence—published in a bilingual format—written in response and homage to those who died, as well as to all those who call for peace and justice in the Mexican highlands and throughout the Americas.
The sections are written in the voices of four women from a family in Chiapas: Xunka, a lost twelve-year-old girl; Pascuala, the mother; grandmother Maruch; and Makal, an older daughter who is pregnant. Each voice weaves into the others and speaks for still other members of the larger Mayan and Native American family.
Thunderweavers is a story of violent displacements in the lives of the most impoverished residents of southern Mexico.Through these words, readers will learn the meaning of transcendence and continuity in the midst of chaos, suffering, and war.
“Fierce, anguished lyrics. . . . Herrera handles complex, wrenching material with a chilling tone that is at once furiously resistant, unsentimental and deeply wounded. The back-to-back English and Spanish allows the reader a fluid read in either language.”—Publishers Weekly
“Juan Felipe Herrera has done a commendable job of bringing the horror of this time to poetry.”—Foreword
“The simple, enduring ebb and flow of village life . . . is shattered forever by man’s unnatural acts; the fields are drenched in blood and the people murdered. That Thunderweavers is a hard book to read is a tribute to the power of Herrera’s elegiac verses.”—MultiCultural Review
“In this poet’s voice we hear the distant thunder of Chiapas growing closer—the church bells and the gunfire—as a Mayan family fights to survive.”—Martín Espada
“Juan Felipe Herrera has done a commendable job of bringing the horror of this time to poetry.”—Foreword
“The simple, enduring ebb and flow of village life . . . is shattered forever by man’s unnatural acts; the fields are drenched in blood and the people murdered. That Thunderweavers is a hard book to read is a tribute to the power of Herrera’s elegiac verses.”—MultiCultural Review
“In this poet’s voice we hear the distant thunder of Chiapas growing closer—the church bells and the gunfire—as a Mayan family fights to survive.”—Martín Espada
150 Pages
6 x 9 x 0.6
Published: February 2000Paperback ISBN: 9780816519866
Published: November 2015Ebook ISBN: 9780816533077