Novel
Time Commences in Xibalbá
El tiempo principia en Xibalbá
Luis de Lión · 1985
Synopsis
In an indigenous village of Guatemala placed under the protection of a wooden Virgin of the Conception, Pascual Baeza returns after years of army service and hard living. He finds a frozen world, which at once attracts and repels him. The men of the village desire the statue, and Juan Caca marries la Concha, a woman who resembles it. The narrative, cyclical and many-voiced, makes the village a Xibalbá, the Maya underworld.
Context
Written from 1970 to 1972 and distinguished in 1972 at the Floral Games of Quetzaltenango, the novel did not appear until 1985, almost unnoticed, from Serviprensa Centroamericana, in Guatemala City. It was reissued in 1996, in 2003 and by Ediciones del Pensativo from 2013. Arturo Arias sees in it a founding text of modern Maya literature, and Nathan C. Henne translated it into English in 2012 under the title Time Commences in Xibalbá.
Who it is for
For discovering a Guatemalan Maya novel written in Spanish and nourished by myth, readable in English.
Prizes and reception
Publishers Weekly praises the hero's return, borne on an almost mythical wind, and a narrative that turns back on itself.
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