cover image El Cielo A Dentelladas = Heaven Bite by Bite

El Cielo A Dentelladas = Heaven Bite by Bite

Antonio Sarabia. Ediciones B, $12.93 (240pp) ISBN 978-84-406-9980-0

A historical novel set in 16th-century Seville, Sarabia's fifth book imagines the moral formation of Bartolom de las Casas, the Roman Catholic priest famous for his eloquent denunciations of the Spanish slave trade in the Americas. In interviews, Sarabia has said that he got the idea for this novel when a friend told him that, as a young man, de las Casas owned a Native American slave named Cristobalillo. (Cristobalillo was a present from Bartolom 's father, who traveled to the Indies shortly after Columbus.) In Sarabia's version, young Bartolom 's friendship with his slave awakens him to the evils of the Spanish Inquisition and points the way to his career as a moral crusader. But that's only half the book's plot. In a parallel storyline, Sarabia gives a child's-eye view of the predicament of sexy, rebellious Catalina, a slave whose owner forces her to become a concubine because she refuses either to learn Spanish or wait tables in his tavern. Though Sarabia's novel considers some important issues the treatment of slaves in Inquisition Spain, the delusions of Spaniards who believed the New World was populated with dragons and unicorns his handling of these issues lacks complexity. Catalina, for example, never rises above her position as a symbol of Indian dignity, and Bartolom 's awakening is utterly predictable. Perhaps those who still view Christopher Columbus as a pristine example of the ""brave explorer"" will be shocked by Sarabia's well researched revelations concerning the workings of the slave industry. Readers brought up with a more complex understanding of America's history are likely to find such disclosures old hat. Marcela Vald s, ""Criticas""