**An icon of Latin American literature captures the strangeness of
childhood as he explores the aftermath of a long-ago injury in this
"searching, lyrical memoir" with elements of magical realism
"reminiscent of García Márquez" (Kirkus Reviews)
**
Homero Aridjis has always said that he was born twice. The first time
was to his mother in April 1940 and the second time was as a poet, in
January 1951. His life was distinctly cleaved in two by an accident.
Before that fateful Saturday, he was carefree and confident, the
youngest of five brothers growing up in the small Mexican village of
Contepec, Michoacán. After the accident--in which he nearly died on the
operating table after shooting himself with a shotgun his brothers had
left propped against the bedroom wall--he became a shy, introspective
child who spent afternoons reading Homer and writing poems and stories
at the dining room table instead of playing soccer with his classmates.
After the accident, his early childhood became like a locked garden. But
in 1971, when his wife became pregnant with their first daughter, the
memories found a way out. Visions from this elusive period started
coming back to him in astonishingly vivid dreams, giving shape to what
would become The Child Poet.
Aridjis is joyously imaginative. The Child Poet has urgency but still
takes its time, celebrating images and feelings and the strangeness of
childhood. Readers will love being in the world he has created. Aridjis
paints the pueblo of Cotepec--the landscape, the campesinos, the Church,
the legacy of the Mexican Revolution--through the eyes of a sensitive
child.
