God Carlos

<P>"Set in the sixteenth century, Winkler's latest novel is something like "Heart of Darkness" meets "Animal Farm. " But what happens when Jamaica's most flamboyantly irreverent and fiercely… Lue lisää <P>"Set in the sixteenth century, Winkler's latest novel is something like "Heart of Darkness" meets "Animal Farm. " But what happens when Jamaica's most flamboyantly irreverent and fiercely contemporary novelist tackles the past? Why, the past becomes flamboyantly irreverent and fiercely contemporary. Winkler's achievement here is not that he remakes himself as a historical writer, but that he remakes history. "--Kei Miller, author of "The Last Warner Woman"<P>"Winkler is renowned in the West Indies for his comic genius. In "God Carlos," he undertakes the formidable task of imagining the region's damaged history--unwritten and seemingly unreachable--with such ease and insight that we find ourselves transported to sixteenth-century Jamaica, as we watch the story unfold before our eyes. "--Robert Antoni, author of "Carnival"<P>"A vivid and powerful account of the tragedy unleashed upon the native peoples of the Caribbean in the years following the arrival of Christopher Columbus. "--Jaime Manrique, author of "Cervantes Street"<P>"Every country (if she's lucky) gets the Mark Twain she deserves, and Winkler is ours. "--Marlon James, author of "The Book of Night Women"<P>"God Carlos" transports us to a voyage aboard the "Santa Inez, " a Spanish sailing vessel bound for the newly discovered West Indies with a fortune-seeking band of ragtag sailors. She is an unusual explorer for her day, carrying no provisions for the settlers, no seed for planting crops, manned by vain, arrogant men looking for gold in Jamaica. <P>Expecting to make landfall in paradise after over a month at sea, the crew of the "Santa Inez" instead find themselves in the middle of a timid, innocent people--the Arawaks--who walk around stark naked without embarrassment and who venerate their own customs and worship their own Gods and creeds. The European newcomers do not find gold, only the merciless climate that nourishes diseases that slaughter them. That the Arawaks believed that the arrivals were from heaven makes even more complicated this impossible entanglement of culture, custom, and beliefs, ultimately leading to mutual doom.