The Names of Heaven

by Flavia Idà

Overview

One man. An extraordinary choice.

In 1511 a Spanish ship en route from the island of Hispaniola sank off the coast of Yucatan near the town of Tulum. The survivors were captured by the Maya; these were the first white men ever to set foot on the mainland of the American continent, and the first white men the Maya had ever seen.

Among the castaways was Gonzalo Guerrero, a sailor from Palos. After he was captured, he lived among the Maya as a slave for three years. He then escaped from his master and sought the protection of Lord Nachancan, ruler of Chetumal in Belize, who made him a free man. Gifted with a fine military mind, Gonzalo quickly rose to become Nachancan’s war captain; he married Nachancan’s sister and had three children with her. This was the first European-American family; it was the founding of the Mestizo race, and it changed the face of the New World.

In 1517 the conquistador Hernando Cortez came to bring Gonzalo back to the Spaniards, offering him a position of high power among his countrymen. The decision Gonzalo took then was the only one ever taken by a white man in the conquest of the Americas, and it made him a hero.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940153939346
Publisher:	Paper Angel Press
Publication date:	01/02/2017
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	512 KB

About the Author

Flavia was born and raised in Arena, a medieval hill town in Calabria, the ancient “instep” of the Italian Peninsula, and studied Classics and European Literature at the University of Naples. She wrote her first short story when she was 12, and ever since then, writing has been the most important thing she does.

When she was 28, she came to live in San Francisco, where she learned English by watching children’s television programs with her son Adam, then four years old. She loves English as much as she loves Italian, for different reasons but in the same measure. She writes in English and in Italian, she thinks in English and in Italian, and she dreams in English and in Italian.

In 1984, she graduated Summa Cum Laude in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, where she also got her Master’s Degree. The six years at SFSU were without a doubt the happiest of her life; she remembers those long hours spent in the library with books as a wonderful time spent with dear friends.

From a student of Creative Writing at SFSU she went on to become a teacher of Creative Writing, a most rewarding job where she met many young people with a true gift for writing. She was the recipient of the Emily Dickinson Award sponsored by the Poetry Society of America. She has taught Italian at the Italian Institute of Language and Culture in San Francisco and in several other schools throughout the Bay Area.

She has also worked for many years as a translator and consultant for the Italian Consulate General, specializing in Citizenship applications; another rewarding job where over her fourteen years she has helped hundreds of people of Italian descent reach their goal of reconnecting with the land of their ancestors. She lives in Pacifica, California, right at the edge of the ocean where the continent ends.