TIERRA DEL FUEGO
by Sylvia Iparraguirre & translated by Hardie St. Martin
The powerful story of Jemmy Button—the Yamana Indian brought in 1829 to England (to be “civilized”) by explorer Robert Fitzroy (previously related both in fiction and in Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle)—is retold with impressive narrative sweep and empathy in this multiple prizewinner from a well-known Argentinean dissident writer. Iparraguirre ingeniously communicates the tale through the journals of biracial (Argentine-English) observer and man-without-a-country John William Guevara, a figure finally as complex and elusive as the “primitive” Jemmy himself. A brilliant parable of colonialism rampant, and one of the best Latin American novels of recent years.