Chango, the Biggest Badass (Americas) - Tapa dura

This is an epic novel of the African diaspora in the Americas, from the slave trade to Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey. The crowning achievement of Afro-Colombian author, Zapata Olivella, ""Chango, el gran putas"" depicts the African American experience from an entirely different perspective-that of the gods who stand over the world and watch. Ranging from Brazil to New England but centered in the Caribbean, where countless slaves once arrived from West Africa, ""Chango"" recounts scenes from four centuries of involuntary displacement and servitude of the muntu, the people. Through the voices of Benkos Biojo in Colombia, Henri Christophe in Haiti, Simon Bolivar in Venezuela, Jose Maria Morelos in Mexico, the Aleijadinho in Brazil, or Malcolm X in Harlem, Zapata Olivella conveys, in luminous verse and prose, the breadth of heroism, betrayal, and suffering common to the history of people of African descent in the Western hemisphere. Unique to these narratives is the hovering presence of the Orichas, the African gods and messengers whose actions construct a worldview that defies Western logic. And within this pantheon stands Chango, the god of fire, war, and thunder who both curses the muntu for betraying their own kind and challenges them to liberate not only themselves but all of humanity. ""Chango, the Biggest Badass"" is a passionate tour de force that seeks to recuperate the values and wisdom of a people subjugated in the European colonizers' headlong rush toward empire, treasure, and modernity. Readers and critics of postcolonial literatures will relish the opportunity to experience Zapata Olivella's masterpiece in English; students of world cultures will appreciate this extraordinary tapestry, woven from equal strands of myth and history.

Manuel Zapata Olivella (1920 2004), hailed by critic Richard Jackson as the dean of Black Hispanic writers, was the author of more than a dozen novels as well as numerous essays and short stories, including A Saint Is Born in Chima and Chambacu, Black Slum. One of six children in a Colombian literary family, Zapata Olivella initially pursued medical training at the National University of Bogota but interrupted his studies to write and travel. From the 1940s through the 1990s he explored not only the folklore and ethnography of his native country but an expansive range of international social and political themes. His work garnered prestigious literary awards worldwide, including the Simon Bolivar Prize, the Casa de las Americas Prize, and the Parisian Human Rights Prize.Jonathan Tittler, professor of Hispanic studies at Rutgers University Camden, holds the Ph.D. in Hispanic literature from Cornell University. He is the author of four books, including the political-literary biography El verbo y el mando: Vida y milagros de Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazabal (Language and Power: The Life and Times of Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazabal) and numerous articles in the field of contemporary Latin American literature. He has previously translated two Afro-Hispanic novels into English: Juyungo, by Adalberto Ortiz, and Chambacu, Black Slum.William Luis, Chancellor s Professor of Spanish at Vanderbilt University and editor of the Afro-Hispanic Review, is the author and editor of several scholarly books on Latino Caribbean, Afro-Hispanic, and Latin American literature."