Book description
Written" by Guaikan, the elderly Taino man who, in his youth, was adopted by Christopher Columbus and saw history unfold, Taino is the Indian chronicle of the American encounter, the Native view on Columbus and what happened in the Caribbean. This novel, based on a true story, penetrates the historical…
Why read it?
1 author picked Taino as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Taíno scholar José Barreiro uses fiction to illuminate what historical sources cannot: how Indigenous people reacted and adapted to Spanish colonization of the Caribbean.
Barreiro spent years researching the life of Guaikán, alias Diego Colón, a Loku Taíno youth briefly mentioned in several Spanish accounts.
By telling Guaikán’s story in the form of a journal written decades after Spanish arrival in the Caribbean, Barreiro vividly narrates the young man’s varied experiences, from his life in Guanahaní before Spanish arrival, to being taken captive by Columbus, to living in the Spanish colonial city of Santo Domingo.
Most importantly, Barreiro movingly conveys…
From Tessa's list on The best books on the Early Indigenous Caribbean.
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