Description

Translation: Patricia Schaefer Röder

Isthmus of Tehuantepec and Tenochtitlán City, 1519. A young woman survives the bloody Spanish conquest, thanks to her unusual ability for language interpretation. The native peoples’ extermination horrifies her, but this does not prevent her from having a role in the massacres nor does it stop her inflamed love for a Spanish captain. Despite her privileged position, the interpreter is imprisoned and subsequently exiled. This genuine historical character and her descendants will later suffer from uprooting, incomprehension and betrayal in their new environment.

Toronto and Guatemala City, 2003. A Canadian student of Guatemalan origin starts searching for her biological mother. Her only reference is the memory of her escape and her survival to a massacre that took place in an indigenous village. The young woman returns to her place of birth with a stubborn desire for connection; she will encounter persons of a mystical nature that will impel her to decipher the meaning of violent events that transformed her life.

The yearnings and the learnings that inspire these two narrations of the diaspora occur in different centuries and in different regions of the American continent; nevertheless, they converge with mastery in each character’s experience of reconstruction after personal loss.