{"product_id":"central-american-book-of-the-dead-paperback","title":"Central American Book of the Dead - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eBalam Rodrigo\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eDan Bellm\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePoet Balam Rodrigo's Central American Book of the Dead (Libro centroamericano\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ede los muertos), winner of the 2018 Premio Aguascalientes, Mexico's highest poetry\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ehonor, is a sequence of poems in multiple voices, interwoven with the author's own\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003enarrative, about Central American migrants and refugees, living and dead, journeying\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethrough Mexico to the north. The book also interweaves altered passages from A Brief\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAccount of the Destruction of the Indies (1552) by Bartolomé de las Casas, a Spanish\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ecolonist (later friar and bishop) who became the first and fiercest critic of Spanish\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ecolonialism in the New World and the enslavement of indigenous people.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe work's importance has already been well recognized in Mexico. For readers\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ein the U.S. and the English-speaking world, it draws a compelling portrait of one of the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003emost critical stories of our time, in poems of great formal variety and lyrical depth: the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003emassive migration of Central Americans fleeing terror, crime, and extreme poverty, and\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe persecution and danger they face in traveling through Mexico to the United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe book is divided into five sections, for the five main countries of origin in this\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003emigration: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Mexico itself. Each section\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003econtains portraits of migrants; first-person testimonies of the dead, often titled by the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eprecise locations where their bodies may be found; and poems that deploy varied\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esources, including news stories and political and scientific reports, to give fuller context \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eto the human tales. The beginning and end of the book, and each of its five sections, are\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eframed by what Rodrigo calls a palimpsest: his altered passages from Bartolomé de las\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCasas' classic cry of protest, situating the work within a broader Latin American story.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePoems from the English translation of Libro centroamericano have appeared in\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAsymptote, Poem-a-Day from the Academy of American Poets, and Poetry International.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 146\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.37 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 31, 2023\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42125657538695,"sku":"9781953447395","price":18.36,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0601\/2623\/2711\/files\/cf3863e6a0fc144f5112106492c64996.webp?v=1732579053","url":"https:\/\/booksby.splitshops.com\/products\/central-american-book-of-the-dead-paperback","provider":"Books by splitShops","version":"1.0","type":"link"}