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Popol Vuh: A Retelling
An inspired and urgent prose retelling of the Maya myth of creation by renowned Latin American author and scholar Ilan Stavans, gorgeously illustrated by Salvadoran folk artist Gabriela Larios.
The archetypal creation story of Latin America, the Popol Vuh began as a Maya oral tradition millennia ago. In the mid-sixteenth century, as indigenous cultures across the continent were being threatened with destruction by European conquest and Christianity, it was written down in verse by members of the K’iche’ nobility in what is today Guatemala. In 1701, that text was translated into Spanish by a Dominican friar and ethnographer before vanishing mysteriously.
Cosmic in scope and yet intimately human, the Popol Vuh offers invaluable insight into the Maya way of life before being decimated by colonization—their code of ethics, their views on death and the afterlife, and their devotion to passion, courage, and the natural world. It tells the story of how the world was created in a series of rehearsals that included wooden dummies, demi-gods, and eventually humans. It describes the underworld, Xibalba—a place as harrowing as Dante’s hell—and relates the legend of the ultimate king, who, in the face of tragedy, became a spirit that accompanies his people in their struggle for survival.
Popol Vuh: A Retelling is a one-of-a-kind prose rendition of this classic that is as seminal as the Bible and the Quran, the Ramayana and the Odyssey. Award-winning scholar of Latin American literature Ilan Stavans brings a fresh creative energy to the Popol Vuh, giving a new generation of readers the opportunity to connect with this timeless story and with the plight of the indigenous people of the Americas.
The archetypal creation story of Latin America, the Popol Vuh began as a Maya oral tradition millennia ago. In the mid-sixteenth century, as indigenous cultures across the continent were being threatened with destruction by European conquest and Christianity, it was written down in verse by members of the K’iche’ nobility in what is today Guatemala. In 1701, that text was translated into Spanish by a Dominican friar and ethnographer before vanishing mysteriously.
Cosmic in scope and yet intimately human, the Popol Vuh offers invaluable insight into the Maya way of life before being decimated by colonization—their code of ethics, their views on death and the afterlife, and their devotion to passion, courage, and the natural world. It tells the story of how the world was created in a series of rehearsals that included wooden dummies, demi-gods, and eventually humans. It describes the underworld, Xibalba—a place as harrowing as Dante’s hell—and relates the legend of the ultimate king, who, in the face of tragedy, became a spirit that accompanies his people in their struggle for survival.
Popol Vuh: A Retelling is a one-of-a-kind prose rendition of this classic that is as seminal as the Bible and the Quran, the Ramayana and the Odyssey. Award-winning scholar of Latin American literature Ilan Stavans brings a fresh creative energy to the Popol Vuh, giving a new generation of readers the opportunity to connect with this timeless story and with the plight of the indigenous people of the Americas.
160 pages, ebook
First published November 10, 2020
15 people are currently reading
418 people want to read
About the author
Ilan Stavans
240 books133 followersIlan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. An award-winning writer and public television host, his books include Growing Up Latino and Spanglish. A native of Mexico City, he lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 9, 2021
This re-telling of Popol Vuh had a lot of potential, but I am troubled by its framing. For something so self-referential it seems to go out of its way to adopt the voice of the K’iche’ without any acknowledgement that neither Ilan Stavans, Gabriela Larios, or Homero Aridjis (as far as I am aware) are K’iche’. (Anyone who knows better is free to correct me.) I don’t mean to imply that this means none of them should be involved in this project, but the forward and afterward smack of appropriation. I maybe would have been satisfied if Stavans had included an essay justifying his language choices for literary reasons, but as it stands I get the impression that this would not stand up to any basic critical scrutiny.
More practically, readers such as myself could have really benefited from a pronunciation guide at least, or even a guide to characters. The story was enjoyable but I had to give up trying to follow the names or events. The artwork was beautiful.
More practically, readers such as myself could have really benefited from a pronunciation guide at least, or even a guide to characters. The story was enjoyable but I had to give up trying to follow the names or events. The artwork was beautiful.
January 29, 2021
THE MAYA RENAISSANCE IS FINALLY COMING
This book is essential in the present Maya Renaissance. After a long period when the Maya civilization was completely locked up in the academic world dominated by Eric Thompson who refused to READ the carved glyphs on monuments as a complex written language, but basically a written partly phonetic language and thus locked up these glyphic inscriptions into an exclusively or nearly exclusively pictorial, hence artistic cultural expression. That finally ended in 1973. After the next thirty years essentially dedicated to catching up on the time wasted and lost with a tremendous work on the deciphering of all these carved glyphic inscriptions, a period that remained mostly in the academic world, we finally entered a vast movement open onto the public and Maya culture, Maya language, Maya history, Maya architecture, etc. became a touristic horizon for many people (think of the controversial Maya train planned to be built in Mexico) and a cultural field of exploration for a public that becomes wider every day.
The problem is to correct quite a few misrepresentations and to explain many elements that are most of the time misunderstood because of biased approaches. After the groundbreaking work of Dennis Tedlock who systematically brought back to life the surviving cultural production of the Mayas, particularly their literature, though it can only be known from the memory of the survivors of the conquest who managed to keep in their minds the texts they remembered from various public productions or the texts they remember from the codices that were destroyed by the Spanish Christian bigots. Most of them had lost the art of reading the glyphic script of their ancestors, but they remembered the oral texts and stories and were able to transcribe them in transliterated script with the Latin alphabet. It is this transliterated version of Popol Vuh that was used by Francisco Ximenez de Quesada to produce the first translation into Spanish. The most amazing thing is the motivation of this Dominican friar. The translation of Popol Vuh was attached to his second volume on the Mayas. The first volume was a description of the language and the second volume was a sort of catechism book to convert the Mayas to Christianity by finding in Popol Vuh the proper roots and grafting points that could enable the conversion smoothly.
Today, we are trying to resurrect this culture to bring it back to recognition. Popol Vuh is not comparable to any other sacred or not sacred text from old civilizations that managed to produce religions that have outlasted their death as civilizations but created then, new civilizations of their own. Maya religion has not survived and become a religion of the 21st century, but it has survived the conquest and we can revive it as a deeply spiritual culture, and that spirituality deserves to be brought back to life.
Ilan Stavans confronted himself with a self-produced dilemma and challenge. To rewrite in a literary form Popol Vuh in a format that can fit a pocket, in a style that can be read by many people, including those who know nothing about the Mayas, and he had to reduce the great length of the original book and the great complexity of the data and the events described. He had to accept that all that concerns the creation of the Maya world and humanity is one story that has little adventurous or picaresque value, whereas the story of the Hero Twins, even when more or less simplified and freed of the Maize God mythology, this Maize God who was originally the father of the Hero Twins, disinterred from the grave he had been buried into by the Death Lords, and revived into his divine existence, this story is a completely different subject. And finally, the third part of Popol Vuh is the story that is also a little bit the history of the K’iche Mayas, and this time we are dealing with real historical people.
The first part, the creation of the world and humanity, is a purely religious belief and we could compare it with other religious visions of this creation of the world and humanity by some divine entity or entities. The second part is a real adventurous, picaresque, and slightly magical action story that is typically a mythology, and to treat it as a journey sounding like a video game is slightly iconoclastic and irreverent. And there the simplification can create some short-circuits that become erroneous because for a non-informed audience it has a completely different meaning. The way the author here insists on using the number 7 brings in a pattern which is the Genesis week of the Holy Week for Christians, a week anyway, and the Mayas did not have any seven-day unit in their three calendars. For example, the case of Q’uq’umatz, who is identified with Quetzalcoatl, is page 156 attached to the number 7, though I cannot find this number in the same episode as translated by Dennis Tedlock. Here is the passage:
“King Q’uq’umatz was truly prodigious. He was known as a poet, a musician, and an adroit ballplayer. He ascended to Heaven for seven days and another seven days he descended to Xibalba. For seven days he became a serpent. For another seven days, he became an eagle. And for another seven days, he was a jaguar too. His appearance was that of these animals during those periods. During another seven days, he became coagulated blood.”
Six times, but once again no length is given by Tedlock in his translation. I am afraid there is a mistake here caused by something that is for me the ambiguity of a “homophonous” form in Ilan Stavans’ version. The numeral 7 (wuk in Maya according to Michael Coe and Mark Van Stone) is used as a prefix for a name, this prefix is a reference to the Tzolk’in calendar in which a day has a name (out of a list of twenty) and a number (out of a rotating series from 1 to 13). The father and uncle of the Hero Twins are Jun Junajpu (1 Junajpu, with Junajpu itself being 1-Ajaw, hence it is 1 #1-Lord) and Wukub’ Junapju (7 Junajpu, with the same remark as before for Junajpu, hence 1 #1-Lord). In the same way, the two main Xibalban Lords are 1-Death and 7-Death. In the book here reviewed for a totally non-explained reason they become Jun Kame (1 Death) and Ququb’ Kame (7 Death). Why 7 shifts from Wukub’ to Ququb’? That leads us back to King Q’uq’umatz. How come Q’uq’ is understood as 7, whereas Q’uq’u corresponds to the glyph T744a in John Montgomery’s dictionary: /k’uk’/ which designates the Quetzal bird in Maya. The heavy reference to 7 attached to this king who is connected to Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan in Maya, (“Kukulcan, the Snake God of the Maya” in Ancient Origins, https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths...
K’uk’ T744a: Quetzal bird
Can, chan, or kan T764: snake, serpent, captor. Homophonous with chaan/kaan sky and chan/kan 4
K’uk’ulcan: Quetzal-serpent plumed serpent or Quetzalcoatl in Nahuatl.
If there is a number behind the name of this king Q’uq’umatz, il might be 4. In the resources that are available to me, I cannot find “matz” or “umatz.” In Popol Vuh, the K'iche' feathered serpent god Tepeu Q'uq'umatz is the creator of the cosmos. Tepeu is a word of K'iche' Maya meaning "sovereign" (also "he who conquers" or "he who is victorious"). The title is associated with the god Q'uq'umatz of the K'iche'-Maya, one of the creation gods of Popol Vuh; his whole name meaning "Sovereign Plumed Serpent."
The book is rather entertaining and should satisfy a wide audience, at least the section about the Hero Twins. It would be good to do what Tedlock did for some Maya literature: to recuperate the layout of the text for oral production with the breathing units and the tempo of the original Maya text. The few remarks I did on some details show that for full understanding without any betraying we should have some notes.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
This book is essential in the present Maya Renaissance. After a long period when the Maya civilization was completely locked up in the academic world dominated by Eric Thompson who refused to READ the carved glyphs on monuments as a complex written language, but basically a written partly phonetic language and thus locked up these glyphic inscriptions into an exclusively or nearly exclusively pictorial, hence artistic cultural expression. That finally ended in 1973. After the next thirty years essentially dedicated to catching up on the time wasted and lost with a tremendous work on the deciphering of all these carved glyphic inscriptions, a period that remained mostly in the academic world, we finally entered a vast movement open onto the public and Maya culture, Maya language, Maya history, Maya architecture, etc. became a touristic horizon for many people (think of the controversial Maya train planned to be built in Mexico) and a cultural field of exploration for a public that becomes wider every day.
The problem is to correct quite a few misrepresentations and to explain many elements that are most of the time misunderstood because of biased approaches. After the groundbreaking work of Dennis Tedlock who systematically brought back to life the surviving cultural production of the Mayas, particularly their literature, though it can only be known from the memory of the survivors of the conquest who managed to keep in their minds the texts they remembered from various public productions or the texts they remember from the codices that were destroyed by the Spanish Christian bigots. Most of them had lost the art of reading the glyphic script of their ancestors, but they remembered the oral texts and stories and were able to transcribe them in transliterated script with the Latin alphabet. It is this transliterated version of Popol Vuh that was used by Francisco Ximenez de Quesada to produce the first translation into Spanish. The most amazing thing is the motivation of this Dominican friar. The translation of Popol Vuh was attached to his second volume on the Mayas. The first volume was a description of the language and the second volume was a sort of catechism book to convert the Mayas to Christianity by finding in Popol Vuh the proper roots and grafting points that could enable the conversion smoothly.
Today, we are trying to resurrect this culture to bring it back to recognition. Popol Vuh is not comparable to any other sacred or not sacred text from old civilizations that managed to produce religions that have outlasted their death as civilizations but created then, new civilizations of their own. Maya religion has not survived and become a religion of the 21st century, but it has survived the conquest and we can revive it as a deeply spiritual culture, and that spirituality deserves to be brought back to life.
Ilan Stavans confronted himself with a self-produced dilemma and challenge. To rewrite in a literary form Popol Vuh in a format that can fit a pocket, in a style that can be read by many people, including those who know nothing about the Mayas, and he had to reduce the great length of the original book and the great complexity of the data and the events described. He had to accept that all that concerns the creation of the Maya world and humanity is one story that has little adventurous or picaresque value, whereas the story of the Hero Twins, even when more or less simplified and freed of the Maize God mythology, this Maize God who was originally the father of the Hero Twins, disinterred from the grave he had been buried into by the Death Lords, and revived into his divine existence, this story is a completely different subject. And finally, the third part of Popol Vuh is the story that is also a little bit the history of the K’iche Mayas, and this time we are dealing with real historical people.
The first part, the creation of the world and humanity, is a purely religious belief and we could compare it with other religious visions of this creation of the world and humanity by some divine entity or entities. The second part is a real adventurous, picaresque, and slightly magical action story that is typically a mythology, and to treat it as a journey sounding like a video game is slightly iconoclastic and irreverent. And there the simplification can create some short-circuits that become erroneous because for a non-informed audience it has a completely different meaning. The way the author here insists on using the number 7 brings in a pattern which is the Genesis week of the Holy Week for Christians, a week anyway, and the Mayas did not have any seven-day unit in their three calendars. For example, the case of Q’uq’umatz, who is identified with Quetzalcoatl, is page 156 attached to the number 7, though I cannot find this number in the same episode as translated by Dennis Tedlock. Here is the passage:
“King Q’uq’umatz was truly prodigious. He was known as a poet, a musician, and an adroit ballplayer. He ascended to Heaven for seven days and another seven days he descended to Xibalba. For seven days he became a serpent. For another seven days, he became an eagle. And for another seven days, he was a jaguar too. His appearance was that of these animals during those periods. During another seven days, he became coagulated blood.”
Six times, but once again no length is given by Tedlock in his translation. I am afraid there is a mistake here caused by something that is for me the ambiguity of a “homophonous” form in Ilan Stavans’ version. The numeral 7 (wuk in Maya according to Michael Coe and Mark Van Stone) is used as a prefix for a name, this prefix is a reference to the Tzolk’in calendar in which a day has a name (out of a list of twenty) and a number (out of a rotating series from 1 to 13). The father and uncle of the Hero Twins are Jun Junajpu (1 Junajpu, with Junajpu itself being 1-Ajaw, hence it is 1 #1-Lord) and Wukub’ Junapju (7 Junajpu, with the same remark as before for Junajpu, hence 1 #1-Lord). In the same way, the two main Xibalban Lords are 1-Death and 7-Death. In the book here reviewed for a totally non-explained reason they become Jun Kame (1 Death) and Ququb’ Kame (7 Death). Why 7 shifts from Wukub’ to Ququb’? That leads us back to King Q’uq’umatz. How come Q’uq’ is understood as 7, whereas Q’uq’u corresponds to the glyph T744a in John Montgomery’s dictionary: /k’uk’/ which designates the Quetzal bird in Maya. The heavy reference to 7 attached to this king who is connected to Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan in Maya, (“Kukulcan, the Snake God of the Maya” in Ancient Origins, https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths...
K’uk’ T744a: Quetzal bird
Can, chan, or kan T764: snake, serpent, captor. Homophonous with chaan/kaan sky and chan/kan 4
K’uk’ulcan: Quetzal-serpent plumed serpent or Quetzalcoatl in Nahuatl.
If there is a number behind the name of this king Q’uq’umatz, il might be 4. In the resources that are available to me, I cannot find “matz” or “umatz.” In Popol Vuh, the K'iche' feathered serpent god Tepeu Q'uq'umatz is the creator of the cosmos. Tepeu is a word of K'iche' Maya meaning "sovereign" (also "he who conquers" or "he who is victorious"). The title is associated with the god Q'uq'umatz of the K'iche'-Maya, one of the creation gods of Popol Vuh; his whole name meaning "Sovereign Plumed Serpent."
The book is rather entertaining and should satisfy a wide audience, at least the section about the Hero Twins. It would be good to do what Tedlock did for some Maya literature: to recuperate the layout of the text for oral production with the breathing units and the tempo of the original Maya text. The few remarks I did on some details show that for full understanding without any betraying we should have some notes.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
December 22, 2023
It's hard to read creation myths without understanding the cultural references, but you'd need so many footnotes it would probably look like pages of Talmud. There were a few references I caught that weren't fully explained in the text (e.g. the creation of humans from maize involves Paxil, brokenness, and Cayala, bitter water, to create human blood --- nixtamalization!), but that just proved to me how much was going over my head. Getting a sense of the shape of the mythology (descending and sometimes rising from the underworld, repeated apocalypses) and some common themes (twins) was still worthwhile and interesting.
Sadly not a comic (I would read the hell out of that) but nice, if intermittent, illustrations. But again, with so much visual symbolism that I know I must have been missing....!
Pronunciation guide thanks to my excellent linguistics nerd friend Cass: "x" = "sh", "j" = "h" (like in Spanish). I assume ' is for a glottal stop, but don't quote me on that. This seems like the kind of thing that should have been in the book....
Sadly not a comic (I would read the hell out of that) but nice, if intermittent, illustrations. But again, with so much visual symbolism that I know I must have been missing....!
Pronunciation guide thanks to my excellent linguistics nerd friend Cass: "x" = "sh", "j" = "h" (like in Spanish). I assume ' is for a glottal stop, but don't quote me on that. This seems like the kind of thing that should have been in the book....
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December 8, 2024"These were the former people. Some also say they were dwarves and maybe aluxes, mischievous creatures still living in bushes and near temples. They lived in darkness and turned into stone."
"The boys became the four hundred stars known in the Mayan language as Motz, which is the Pleiades constellation."
"[King Q'uq'umatz] ascended to Heaven for seven days and another seven days he descended to Xibalba. For seven days he became a serprent. For another seven days he became an eagle. And, for another seven days, he was a jaguar too. His appearance was that of these animals during those periods. During another seven days he became coagulated blood."
"At this point, the K'iche' empire was truly large. A visitor once described its confines as 'large enough for the sun never to set.'"
"The boys became the four hundred stars known in the Mayan language as Motz, which is the Pleiades constellation."
"[King Q'uq'umatz] ascended to Heaven for seven days and another seven days he descended to Xibalba. For seven days he became a serprent. For another seven days he became an eagle. And, for another seven days, he was a jaguar too. His appearance was that of these animals during those periods. During another seven days he became coagulated blood."
"At this point, the K'iche' empire was truly large. A visitor once described its confines as 'large enough for the sun never to set.'"
May 9, 2021
A beautiful rendition of the mythological Mayan cosmology. Sadly, conquistadors burned the many Mayan folio books in existence at the time, the flower of their culture, now mostly lost. Imagine the loss to posterity. At least the oral tales were saved to some extent my such conservators as Father Francisco Ximenes De Quesada who learned the native language, Xiche, and recorded the stories told to him.
December 16, 2025
Muy bonito arte y muy buena simplificación del Popol Vuh, quizá vuelva a intentar leer la historia completa ahora con estas bases
August 20, 2021
Not that I have any version to compare with, but I felt this was a good way for people to get into reading the Popol Vuh. It was easy to comprehend, had lovely illustrations, and was a quick read. I intend to read other versions of this book eventually, but as an introduction I feel this was a good choice. The only issue I had with this was the fact that I got the feeling that the author, Ilan Stavans, a Mexican-born man of European descent, believed he was somehow reconnecting to his K'iche heritage by writing this. I mean, I doubt he has any K'iche heritage, but I guess I'm glad he found an appreciation for a culture that in today's world continues to be oppressed?
March 1, 2022
If I choose a retelling instead of a translation I'd hope it flows better and gives more context than the original but this didn't - it would have been better to read a translation.
February 15, 2023
Lo disfruté mucho. Las ilustraciones de Gabriela Larios son maravillosas.
April 6, 2024
Cuando la oscuridad reinaba en todas partes y el silencio se extendía, los dioses crearon el mundo, los valles, los ríos, los animales, los seres de barro y los primeros hombres de madera, quienes se convertirán en monos. Este es el inicio de la historia, cuando los dioses estaban en conflicto, cuando los hombres reales no habían sido creados. También es la historia de los primeros cuatro hombres verdaderos y de las primeras cuatro mujeres, de su expansión sobre la tierra, del linaje antiguo de los mayas. Es la historia de los valientes gemelos Hu Hunapu e Ixbalanque, quienes vencen a los dioses del Xibalba y permiten la aparición de los primeros hombres. Una historia que te explicara como veía el mundo y el universo, una de las culturas más grandes de América.
May 8, 2021
A delightful new rendering of the ancient highland Maya story of the beginning of the Earth and the K’iche’ Maya people, first transcribed from oral stories into writing in the 1550s, and then translated into Spanish in the early eighteenth century by the Dominican Friar Ximénez de Quesada who found the hidden manuscript in the Santo Domingo church, in Chichicastenango, Guatemala. This retelling of the epic Maya creation story is by scholar Ilan Stavans. The book is not only a wonderfully fresh take on these ancient myths, it is graced with lovely illustrations by Gabriela Larios and a Foreword by Homero Aridjis. Richard C. Brusca (author of "In the Land of the Feathered Serpent")
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October 22, 2021A gorgeously illustrated retelling of the Mayan myth of creation, Popol Vuh was read in one sitting. Although I wished this had been available in audio (if for no other reason than the pronunciations), I still got to spend an evening enjoying art and getting more cultured. Stavans’s adaptation in the fiction category specifically subverts and questions what it means to call something a myth—what, in essence, a library or individual might think of as fiction versus fact.
February 16, 2024
I Love This Retelling of Popol Vuh!
I had fixed on a 350 page version(not including endnotes) and was concerned I wouldn’t get through the sacred story properly without guidance, but I think this first reading of this really helped because it’s a little shorter. The languages very lively and the illustrations are wonderful. I love the four progenitors of the Ki’che portrayed as Cats. And it’s all good. Thank you. Will keep on!
I had fixed on a 350 page version(not including endnotes) and was concerned I wouldn’t get through the sacred story properly without guidance, but I think this first reading of this really helped because it’s a little shorter. The languages very lively and the illustrations are wonderful. I love the four progenitors of the Ki’che portrayed as Cats. And it’s all good. Thank you. Will keep on!
January 30, 2025
Discovered this book while researching materials for my mythology class.
It's stunning.
The language is as plain and understandable as any iteration I've found and more enjoyable than any other I've encountered.
The art is a wonderful inclusion which adds warmth and life to the text.
An excellent resource for teaching or studying mythology and culture.
It's stunning.
The language is as plain and understandable as any iteration I've found and more enjoyable than any other I've encountered.
The art is a wonderful inclusion which adds warmth and life to the text.
An excellent resource for teaching or studying mythology and culture.
July 25, 2022
The illustrations are absolutely incredible! I really liked the artwork most of all, but I did appreciate how this creation story was easily depicted in simple wording. It's interesting to learn more about this culture.
June 3, 2023
"We are not the devil. Instead, we have lived under oppression. Our women have been raped. Our children have been taken away from us. Disease has spread among us. Those of us who remain are vulnerable."
Want to read
March 27, 2021Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.
April 6, 2021
Short version of the real thing and still found it dry and boring.
August 12, 2022
An easy, readable version of the Mayan epic. The illustrations are STUNNING.
The Mayans really really loved their ball games!!
The Mayans really really loved their ball games!!
August 27, 2022
Okay and interesting, but seems to leave some plot holes that are covered in the original.
January 6, 2023
So pretty
November 29, 2024
Hola diosito no entendí nada, pero muy bueno la vrdd, me encantó
March 11, 2025
Para haber sido un libro tan extraño, me encantó y no me fue difícil leerlo jajaja otra lectura obligatoria del colegio, menos mal me la pusieron porque sino jamás hubiera leído este libro.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews