Best of
Ethnicity

2001

Questions and Swords: Folktales of the Zapatista Revolution


Subcomandante Marcos - 2001
    The tree, for instance, tried to fight the sword, but was defeated. The stone likewise tried to fight the sword, but was defeated. But not the water. "It follows its own road, it wraps itself around the sword and, without doing anything, it arrives at the river that will carry it to the great water where the greatest of gods cure themselves of thirst, those gods that birthed the world, the first ones.""The Story of Questions" relates how two gods, Ik'al and Votan, wander the earth wrapped forever in each other's arms. These two gods are the Ying and the Yang, the yes and the no, the night and the day of the Mayan universe. Antonio says, "When they got here they made themselves one and gave themselves the name of Zapata."Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska and Native American poet Simon Ortiz contribute commentary to explain the significance of the Zapatista Rebellion to the 21st Century. They also discuss the use of folklore and artistic expression to expand our understanding of political thought.Well-known Mexican artists Domitila Dominguez and Antonio Ramirez—co-directors of the Colectivo Callejero in Guadalajara—each illustrated one of the stories. The Colectivo is dedicated to expanding the understanding of revolutionary thought through artistic expression.This beautiful full-colored edition—the successor to The Story of Colors that received international notoriety when the National Endowment for the Arts rescinded funding for its publication—will serve equally well as a coffee table book as well as a serious read for lovers of Latin American literature.

The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life


Julia Kasdorf - 2001
    Her ten essays, accompanied by 42 illustrations (from a nude by Titian, to family photos, to a famous image of Marilyn Monroe) and a dozen of her poems, focus on specific aspects of Mennonite life. Often drawing from historical episodes or family stories, Kasdorf pursues themes of martyrdom, landscape, silence, the body, memory, community, and the struggle to articulate experience with a voice that is both authentic to the self and a conversation with her traditional Mennonite and Amish-Mennonite background.