Tatuana’s Tale (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Miguel Ángel Asturias
- First Published: 1930
- Type of Plot: Surrealist
- Time of Work: Probably the Spanish colonial period
- Setting: Probably Guatemala
- Principal Characters: Master Almondtree, Black Road, The Merchant of Priceless Jewels, Tatuana
- Genres: Short fiction, Folklore
- Subjects: Nature, Surrealism, Legends, Mayas, Guatemala or Guatemalans
- Locales: Guatemala
The Story
This delightful legend, retold by Miguel Ángel Asturias, introduces the reader to the imagination of the Guatemalan Indian, an imagination that still reflects the worldview of the old Maya. It is a worldview that seems at first totally strange, but its dissolving categories of time, place, and being are familiar to the modern Western mind in dreams, fairy tales, and surrealism.
Master Almondtree, the protagonist, can take either human or tree form. As a priest, he is so brilliantly arrayed that “the white men” think that he is “made of gold.”...
[The entire page is 1343 words long]
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