FROM AZTEC PRINCESS to slave and concubine, Hummingbird -- or Huitzitzilin in her native Nahuatl -- recounts her life during the Spanish conquest of Mexico. She experienced first-hand the wonder of the gods' arrival -- those bearded armored men who descended from their vessels on horseback -- and the brutal devastation of her land and her people. She witnessed the obliteration of Tenochitlan and suffered the loss of her identity -- being forced to discard her traditional garb, to speak a language foreign to her tongue and to forsake her ancestral gods. Expressing a confidence and freedom that women have strived for centuries to attain, Huitzitzilin passionately relates her tale to Father Benito, the priest who seeks to confess and convert her, to offer her an absolution she neither needs nor wants. Instead, she forces him to see the conquest, for the first time, through the eyes of the conquered. In Song of the Hummingbird, Limon pays homage to the pre-Colombian woman, celebrates the endurance of the human spirit in the face of cataclysm and mourns our collective loss of treasures more valuable than all the plundered gold.
Review:
"This novel shouldn't work; it's all predictable, this story of the 'civilization' of the Americas....Yet Graciela Limon's tale is downright hypnotic.
Elizabeth Hanly, Washington Post Book World, 04/28/1996
Review:
"What makes this book particularly interesting and different is the skillful portrayal of the appealing, very human old woman and young priest, each with a strong, well-defined personality and eloquent point of view."
Delia A. Culberson, Voya, August 1997
Review:
"This novel shouldn't work; it's all predictable, this story of the 'civilization' of the Americas....Yet Graciela Limon's tale is downright hypnotic.
Elizabeth Hanly, Washington Post Book World, 04/28/1996
Review:
"What makes this book particularly interesting and different is the skillful portrayal of the appealing, very human old woman and young priest, each with a strong, well-defined personality and eloquent point of view."
Delia A. Culberson, Voya, August 1997