Almanac of the Dead (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)

At a glance:

  • Author: Leslie Marmon Silko
  • First Published: 1991
  • Type of Work: Novel
  • Time of Work: From 1500 to the near future, but mainly in some vague contemporary present
  • Setting: The American Southwest, particularly around Tucson, Arizona, and San Diego, California; northern Mexico
  • Principal Characters: Lecha Cazador, Zeta, Seese, Sterling, Menardo Panson, Angelita, El Feo, Tacho
  • Genres: Long fiction
  • Subjects: Culture
  • Locales: Mexico

Almanac of the Dead is a novel that is larger than life, larger almost than history. Spanning the five hundred years of European rule in Mexico and America’s Southwest, this epic charts the exploitation of the land and its peoples by Europeans and their descendants until the book’s final, apocalyptic scenes, when, in some near and violent future, the forces of the dispossessed, guided by the spirits of the dead, gather together to take back their lands.

Part Native American history, part mythic prophecy, part contemporary cultural analysis, Almanac of the Dead...

[The entire page is 2459 words long]

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