Dear Friends and Colleagues from Around the World, I’ll report on some crazy things happening in Arizona leading up to mid-terms and on a broader context in Culture Watch. I’ll talk about my next book and offer a movie review and a very timely book review in My Writing, Interviews, and Reviews. I found a timely quote for Voices of the Day, the latest in What Others Are Saying, and an updated Calendar. You can click on the poster above for my recent presentation for the Arizona Professional Writers group. Before sharing my thoughts on the craziness surrounding us, I’d like to share […]
Continue readingTag Archives: Latin America Literature
Entre Dos Mundos: Una Memoria por Victor Montejo, La Revisión por Mark D. Walker
Este libro es una autobiografía de un increíble antropólogo y escritor guatemalteco. Él cuenta la extraordinaria historia de un niño Maya quien busca mejorar su vida a través de la educación. Es una historia de sueños y metas que atraviesa el mundo Maya y el Occidental. Supe del autor por primera vez, hace unos veinte años, al leer su novela, “Las Aventuras de Míster Puttison Entre los Mayas,”. Esta otra novela es histórica y satírica, relatando las aventuras de un viajero norteamericano, que aparece en una aldea Maya aislada y la comunidad piensa que es un cura. La historia es […]
Continue readingA Indian Among Los Indigenas: A Native Travel Memoir by Ursula Pike, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
I first became aware of the author when she made a presentation at the Phoenix Writers Network. I had an opportunity to share some similarities in our experiences, since Guatemala and Bolivia have a high percentage of the Indigenous population. I learned that she was from a Native American community, which gave her a perspective most volunteers couldn’t understand or appreciate. Like many volunteers, I was focused on just learning Spanish and surviving, so I wasn’t prepared to learn one of the 22 Mayan languages in Guatemala. When the author revealed that the pages of her copy of Moritz Thomsen’s […]
Continue readingTime Among the Maya: Travels in Belize, Guatemala and Mexico, by Ronald Wright, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
Time Among the Maya: Travels in Belize, Guatemala and Mexico by Ronald Wright Reviewed by Mark D. Walker I came across this travel classic after writing an essay published in ELAND Press and as a token of appreciation, the editor offered any three of their books. Naturally, my first choice was the book with the cover of the iconic Santo Tomas church of Chichicastenango which is filled with a mix of Indigenous flowers and women in traditional garb (traje), and the smell of incense emanating from the catholic church which often has chickens being sacrificed on the top. […]
Continue readingMillion Mile Walker Dispatch: My Saddest Pleasure, A Personal Reflection, February 2022 Issue
Dear Friends and Colleagues from Around the World, The highlight of this month was a personal note from the editor of ELAND Press in London, “Dear Mark, You have done Moritz proud!” This is in response to the essay they published in their newsletter, which they followed up with three ELAND books as a token of their appreciation. In Culture Watch, I’ll share a personal story about the growing efforts to ban books by school boards here in Arizona. Amongst all the craziness, a sense of humor is a must, so I’ve included Just Keep Laughing, My Writing, Interviews […]
Continue readingMonkey Boy by Francisco Goldman, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
The Long Night of White Chickens was my introduction to Francisco Goldman, the author who I selected to review due to his connections to Guatemala, and I’ve been a fan ever since. Though born in Boston, his mother is a Catholic Guatemalan, his father Jewish American, so his life started off with an intriguing combination of influences. The book is a tense, almost surrealistic detective story that opens windows on the Latin American reality of State Sponsored assassinations, marabunta youth gangs and organized crime. His next book, Say Her Name, is an evocative story of love and loss between […]
Continue readingAuthor Interview in SIETAR Newsletter (Soc. Intercultural Education, Training & Research) on Moritz Thomsen
CRAIG STORTI BOOKMARKS: LIVING POOR AND THE SADDEST PLEASURE 14 Dec 2020 8:26 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator) TWO BY MORITZ THOMSEN: Living Poor and The Saddest Pleasure Reviewed by Craig Storti There’s a movement afoot (led in part by Mark Walker, see the interview below) to elevate Moritz Thomsen to the status of a Very Important Writer, someone whose books stay in print for generations and get assigned in college literature classes, someone whose name every well-read person should know. And we here at BookMarks are happy to do our part. We briefly mentioned Thomsen in one of our previous columns (where we reviewed […]
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