A NEW YORK TIMES BEST POETRY BOOK OF 2018
A WORLD LITERATURE TODAY NOTABLE TRANSLATION
In the beginning, the world is spoken into existence with one word:
"Earth." There are no inhabitants, and no sun--only the broad sky,
silent sea, and sovereign Framer and Shaper. Then come the twin heroes
Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Wielding blowguns, they begin a journey to hell
and back, ready to confront the folly of false deities as well as death
itself, in service to the world and to humanity.
This is the story of the Mayan Popol Vuh, "the book of the woven mat,"
one of the only epics indigenous to the Americas. Originally sung and
chanted, before being translated into prose--and now, for the first
time, translated back into verse by Michael Bazzett--this is a story of
the generative power of language. A story that asks not only Where did
you come from? but How might you live again? A story that, for the
first time in English, lives fully as "the phonetic rendering of a
living pulse."
By turns poetic and lucid, sinuous and accessible, this striking new
translation of *The Popol Vuh--the first in the Seedbank series of
world literature--*breathes new life into an essential tale.
