Travel writing, the literary exploration of other cultures, has long been a tradition in the English-speaking world. This book turns the tradition on its head and records what is surely the first Maya literary exploration of the United States. The authors were Tzotzil-speaking Zinacantec Maya who accompanied Robert Laughlin, the compiler of The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of San Lorenzo Zinacantan, on two trips to the United States. These were action-packed journeys. On the initial voyage, in 1963, they were in the United States for the assassination of President Kennedy. "The murderer...
Travel writing, the literary exploration of other cultures, has long been a tradition in the English-speaking world. This book turns the tradition ...
Robert M. Laughlin Socorro Gomez Hernandez Juan Benit
The forty-two stories presented in this book were told to Robert Laughlin in Tzotzil by Francisca Hernandez Hernandez, an elderly woman known as Dona Pancha, the only speaker of Tzotzil left in the village of San Felipe Ecatepec in Chiapas, Mexico. Laughlin and Dona Pancha's running conversation is the source for the stories, which means they are told in much the same way that stories are told in traditional native settings.
Dona Pancha is bilingual in Tzotzil and Spanish, and the stories are presented here in English, Tzotzil, and Spanish. They range from mythological sacred stories...
The forty-two stories presented in this book were told to Robert Laughlin in Tzotzil by Francisca Hernandez Hernandez, an elderly woman known as Dona ...
