The Skipping Stone Magazine Honor Award (one of the best multicultural
books for children in 2020)
Green Was My Forest is an illustrated collection of twelve short
stories about each of Ecuador's six remaining Amazon indigenous groups,
told from the point-of-view of the indigenous children themselves. In
simple, yet beautiful language, the stories explore the culture, customs
and ancestral wisdom of the indigenous groups living in the Ecuadorian
Amazon, highlighting their collective love, respect and custodianship of
the natural world. These stories offer a rare perspective on these
indigenous peoples whose culture and way of life are continuously being
threatened by outsiders and the forces of modernization. They portray
the way of life of the people who live in Ecuadorian Amazonia known for
its forest, exotic animals, and indigenous towns. After traveling to
this little-known region and meeting the people who inhabit it,
Iturralde studied their way of life, observed their culture, and then
wrote these imaginative entertaining stories remaining faithful to these
tribes and their world.
Ecuadorian author, Edna Iturralde, is considered the most important
figure in children and young adult's literature in Latin America with
nearly sixty published books. In 2014, her collection of short stories,
Verde fue mi selva, now translated and published here in English for
the first time as Green Was My Forest, was selected as one of the ten
best children's books written in Latin America during the 20th Century.
Iturralde's books are used in the school curriculum of Houston and Los
Angeles. The Texas Library Association selected two of her books for its
2016-17 list of ten recommended books. Two of her books are part of the
Required Summer Reading Books recommended by Scholastic Books. Three of
her books have won the Skipping Stones International Book Prize, and
five of her books won the International Latino Book Award.
Jessica Powell, has translated dozens of works by a wide variety of
Latin American writers. Her translation of Antonio Benítez Rojo's novel
Woman in Battle Dress (City Lights, 2015) was a finalist for the PEN
Center USA Literary Award for Translation. Her translation of Wicked
Weeds by Pedro Cabiya (Mandel Vilar Press, 2016), was named a finalist
for the 2017 Best Translated Book Award and made the longlist for the
2017 National Translation Award. Her most recent translation, the
first-ever English translation of Pablo Neruda's book-length poem,
venture of the infinite man, was just published by City Lights Books
in October of 2017.
