This Guatemalan anthropologist and writer tells the extraordinary story of a Mayan boy who seeks to improve his life through education. It is a story of dreams and goals that crosses the Mayan and Western worlds.

I first learned about the author twenty years ago when I read his novel, “The Adventures of Mr. Puttison Among the Maya,” in English and Spanish.  This novel is historical and satirical, recounting the adventures of an American traveler, who appears in an isolated Mayan village, and the community thinks he is a priest.  This story is the story of an encounter between Western culture and the Maya.  Like “Between Two Worlds,” it is very well written and sometimes even comical; however, it reveals a lot about the reality of the Mayan people.

Over the years, I have written reviews of five of his 12 books. I interviewed him for a documentary I worked on in “Revue Magazine.”

At the beginning of the book, the author acknowledges a group that helped him to leave the countryside as the son of humble parents and become a recognized anthropologist, “To the sisters and priests of the Maryknoll, who in the early 1960s sought and chose indigenous children from the villages to give them an opportunity for education at the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas boarding school in Jacaltenango.”  He was just seven years old when he started studying. However, he says that his parents taught him the myths and oral traditions of their town, Jacaltenang.  Read more....