The Scorpions Tail

by Sylvia Torti

Sylvia Torti's The Scorpion's Tail won the 2005 Miguel Mármol Prize, awarded annually by Curbstone Press for the best debut work in fiction by a Latinx writer. This suspense-filled novel explores struggles of indigenous people in southern Mexico during the Zapatista rebellion. The Scorpion's Tail encompasses both the point of view of Amy, a young US biologist inadvertently caught up in the rebellion, and that of Chan Nah K'in, an insurgent woman guerrilla. It explores the dilemma of the Hach Winik people caught between their traditional life and the modern world, where they must take aggressive political and military action to preserve their very existence. The Scorpion's Tail is also an initiation story—Amy is plunged into the social realities of Mexico, an experience that shatters her neat, isolated world of science and changes her life forever.

260 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[Jason Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought provoking story of the Zapatista uprising of 1994 told from the contrasting perspectives of Chan Nah K'in, an indigenous female insurgent, Amy, an American entomologist on her first foreign trip, Pablo, a secretly gay Mexican ornithologist, and Mario, a Guerrerense in the Mexican army. The characters may be a bit difficult to relate to if one is not familiar with indigenous relations in Mexico or academia in the United States, but the central themes of self discovery, transformation, and escaping our pasts are creatively developed through the intertwined stories of the main characters.

[Makenna Anderson]

i actually really liked this random book i bought at goodwill. it opened my eyes to a topic i had previously not known anything about and there were some beautiful, thought-provoking quotes about ignorance and the guilty freedom it brings

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan Vogel suggested I contact Sylvia Torti, a U of U biologist, about Latino butterfly symbology (connected to ending of opera Florencia en el Amazonas), and told me about Sylvia's novel. I had fun email exchanges with Sylvia (not about butterflies, except for our mutual admiration of South American Morphos, which play a role in several scenes in the novel). Butterfly lives work for all of us as images of change, transformation, new life, emerging in beauty. Her novel is about an American entomologist who goes on a research trip to Ocosingo, Chiapas, in southern Mexico and finds herself naive in the midst of a native "Zapatista" rebellion against the government. Chapters are narrated from the point of view of various characters: Amy the entomologist; Pablo a closeted-gay Mexican bird researcher who returns to Ocosingo after the group escapes and becomes a courier from the Zapatistas (4 native groups working together) to newspapers - he gets a scholarship to the U of U biology dpmt by the end of the novel; Mario, in the Mexican army and surprised to find himself in battle - friend gets killed, assumes his unit thinks they're both dead, and makes plans to head north; and Chan Nah K'in, a teenaged native who is captured and raped by military, returned to her people by Pablo - who hunkers down in a cave, and then returns, gets pregnant and makes food for her people. I liked the book and this way of learning about issues in this part of the world, and look forward to telling the author in conversation about my reading experience next week...

[Gigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently I took a workshop with Sylvia Torti at the URI Summer Writing Conference. She was a great teacher, and I enjoyed the novel a lot, although I found the beginning a little slow. Some really beautiful writing and insights came later.

[Eric Dirnbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting historical fiction of a group of bird scientists in Chiapas when the Zapatista rebellion starts and how they react and deal with it. There are perspectives of the Zapatistas and Army soldiers as well.

[WAM WAM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Viva La Zapatista

"It is better to die on your feet than to live a lifetime on your knees." -Emiliano Zapata