Palabras de Opoton O Vello

The novel Palabras de Opoton o Vello, by Avel·lí Artís-Gener, is considered a reference work in 20th century Catalan literature. Set in Galicia, the author wanted to turn the story around in a fiction in which six Aztec canoes leave Mexico in 1498 for Galicia to discover the new world. Set chronologically shortly before the American genocide, the novel is told from the innocent or suspicious point of view with which the Aztecs observed and interpreted the Galician life and customs of the late Middle Ages. Denouncing the fact that one people can become a conqueror and dominator of another, Avel·lí Artís-Gener starts from the knowledge of Mexico's own languages, such as Nahuatl, to make a game of mirrors that fascinates in a novel full of humor, magnificently translated by Eduard Velasco, and that supposes an iron defense of the freedom of the towns and the coexistence of the cultures.