El Zarco
Ignacio Manuel Altamirano
Lumen Books
40 Camino Cielo, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87506
9780930829612, $17.00, www.lumenbooks.org
A classic piece of literature from 19th century Mexico, "El
Zarco: The Blue-Eyed Bandit" by Ignacio Manuel Altamirano is
deftly, accurately, and faithfully translated from Spanish to English by
Ronald Christ. The story is a classic melodrama, although with some
roots in reality. While it is fiction, it does speak to the issues of
the time, as Altamirano was one of the first Mexican writers to attack
the concept of racism in a literary situation. As a story, it's
gripping as some of the best, keeping you reading from the first page to
the last, making "El Zarco: The Blue-Eyed Bandit" highly
recommended to community library world fiction collections.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Midwest Book
Review Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Copyright 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights
reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.