Ch'ayemal nich'nabiletik / Los hijos errantes / The Errant Children - Paperback

by Mikel Ruiz (Author), Sean S. Sell (Translator)

A bold and unflinching portrayal of contemporary Maya life in Chiapas, Mexico.

Mikel Ruiz's The Errant Children, the first novel published in the Tsotsil Maya language, offers a bold and unflinching portrayal of contemporary Maya life in Chiapas, México. Pedro Ton Tsepente' has a position in his village's traditional council, but rather than taking just a few ceremonial drinks, he becomes an alcoholic, subject to blackouts and delirium tremens. His wife, Pascuala, rages at God to step in and change her husband's behavior, taking extreme measures when He does not. Their neighbor, seventeen-year-old Ignacio Ts'unun, learns about gender relations by watching television programs where beautiful women are lighter-skinned and about sex by watching pornography, which leads to disastrous choices. These characters' suffering comes not from conquerors, missionaries, or settlers but from invasive economic and cultural forces that can make Indigenous people devalue themselves. Do not expect to be uplifted, but do prepare to be astonished.

Author Biography

Mikel Ruiz received his doctoral degree in social and humanistic sciences from the University of Science and Arts of Chiapas in Mexico. He is the author of La ira de los murciélagos. Sean S. Sell is a doctoral candidate in comparative literature at the University of California, Davis. He is the translator and, with Nicolás Huet Bautista, coeditor of Chiapas Maya Awakening: Contemporary Poems and Short Stories.