Book description
Set in a land of earthquakes and towering volcanoes, weaving history with myth, Arauco tells of war, sorcery ... and a love demonstrating that a man can embrace what he was seeking to destroy.When in 1540 Pedro de Valdivia headed south from Peru to conquer lands and gold, he took…
Why read it?
1 author picked Arauco as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Another big, ambitious book that tells a war from both sides: here the 16th-century Spanish invasion of Chile. Equal time is given to the cast of Spaniards and the cast of Mapuche – large casts in each case. You’ll learn a battery of Mapuche words, for epics were always educative. What I love most, perhaps, about this book – after the shaman Ñamku, whom you see on the wonderful cover – is its witty style, its wordplay, gambolling in its sentences like a porpoise in the ocean, for sheer exuberance’s sake. Exuberance is a quality of epic. Along…
From Bryn's list on seriously epic historical fiction.
If you love Arauco...
These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
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