The New World of Martin Cortes - Softcover

Lanyon, Anna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0306814218 ISBN 13: 9780306814211

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2005

Synopsis

As the once-great Aztec empire lay in ruins, an illegitimate child was born to its conqueror, Hernan Cortes. The product of a union between the famous conquistador and his Mayan slave woman and translator, Malinche, the child was named Martin Cortes—remembered today by Mexicans as the first mestizo, emblematic of Mexico's origins.In The New World of Martin Cortes, Anna Lanyon takes us on a journey of historical discovery, vividly evoking those extraordinary times when two empires—Spain and Mexico—collided. This is a tale of intrigue and identity, exploring Martin Cortes's relations with his famous father, his half-brother of the same father and name (Cortes also named his second, legitimate son, Martin), his mother's indigenous people; and his father's noble peers. As Lanyon unearths the life and times of Martin Cortes, we learn something about the processes of history and legend as well, and the nature of the human spirit caught between two worlds.

About this title

About the Author:

Anna Lanyon teaches and translates Spanish. She is the author of Malinche's Conquest, which won the New South Wales Premiere History Prize for historical writing. She lives in Australia.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this well-researched and attractive exploration of the life of the "first mestizo," or "the first 'Mexican,' " Australian writer Lanyon (Malinche's Conquest) tells the dramatic tale of Martín Cortés, the son of Hernán Cortés and the Amerindian woman Malinche, from his birth in 1522 in Tenochtitlán–Mexico City to his death less than five decades later near Granada. The story traces his passage to Spain as a six-year-old, long years of royal service under Charles V and the disastrous return to Mexico, where—accused of conspiracy against the Crown—Martín confronts imprisonment and brutal torture. Lanyon effectively interweaves historical reconstruction with personal narrative, crossing the divide between traveler and scholar in order to evoke the human immediacy of history. Lanyon is always receptive to the unsolicited clue and the unexpected sight connecting her, and us, to Martin's multiple new worlds. Waiting for a train in Madrid, Lan yon observes the immigrant faces: the "people of empire" who have crossed the Atlantic to stake their own modest claims on Spain. Lanyon avoids romanticizing the victims of conquest, but is acutely aware of the suffering of the indigenous peoples, and her fleeting analogies with the trauma of the Australian aborigines are illuminating. There are a few mistakes in her references to Spain before Empire, yet this remains a deeply likable book with significance beyond its immediate subject. Illus., maps.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0306814218
• ISBN 13: 9780306814211
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272