Seven Serpents and Seven Moons is set on the shores of Santorontón. This tropical village is inhabited by some exceptional beings: the vigorous, rough-hewn Father Cándido and his wry talking Jesus--a crucifix presented to him by pirates from out of the past; Colonel Candelario Mariscal, the despoiler who is said to be the son of the Devil and is seeking salvation through the honest love of the daughter of the witch doctor Bulu-Bulu; and Crisóstomo Chalena, the outsider who gains control of the town's roofs and rainwater and eventually the entire village. These and many other equally protean figures cross paths and swords as Santorontón is torn between the Evil One and the Crucified One. The story is invested with a pervading sense of magic and with political meaning as well. The fantastic microcosm of Santorontón illustrates both symbolically and literally many of the essential problems that bedevil Latin America.

An adventure gamebook in the Fighting fantasy gamebook tradition, about a quest to recover the Crown of Kings from the evil Archmage.

Follows Jesuit seminarian Julian Escobar in the New World as he witnesses the enslavement and exploitation of the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas by Spanish conquerers.

Seven Serpents and Seven Moons is set on the shores of Santorontón. This tropical village is inhabited by some exceptional beings: the vigorous, rough-hewn Father Cándido and his wry talking Jesus--a crucifix presented to him by pirates from out of the past; Colonel Candelario Mariscal, the despoiler who is said to be the son of the Devil and is seeking salvation through the honest love of the daughter of the witch doctor Bulu-Bulu; and Crisóstomo Chalena, the outsider who gains control of the town's roofs and rainwater and eventually the entire village. These and many other equally protean figures cross paths and swords as Santorontón is torn between the Evil One and the Crucified One. The story is invested with a pervading sense of magic and with political meaning as well. The fantastic microcosm of Santorontón illustrates both symbolically and literally many of the essential problems that bedevil Latin America.

Gregory Rabassa's influence as a translator is incalculable. His translations of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch have helped make these some of the most widely read and respected works in world literature. (Garcia Marquez was known to say that the English translation of One Hundred Years was better than the Spanish original.) In If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents Rabassa offers a cool-headed and humorous defense of translation, laying out his views on the art of the craft. Anecdotal, and always illuminating, If This Be Treason traces Rabassa's career, from his boyhood on a New Hampshire farm, his school days "collecting" languages, the two-and-a-half years he spent overseas during WWII, his travels, until one day "I signed a contract to do my first translation of a long work [Cortazar's Hopscotch] for a commercial publisher." Rabassa concludes with his "rap sheet," a consideration of the various authors and the over 40 works he has translated. This long-awaited memoir is a joy to read, an instrumental guide to translating, and a look at the life of one of its great practitioners.