Birds without a Nest

<p>I love the native race with a tender love and so I have observed its customs closely enchanted by their simplicity and as well the abjection into which this race is plunged by small-town despots who while their names may change never fail to live up to the epithet of tyrants. They are no other than in general the priests governors caciques and mayors. So wrote Clorinda Matto de Turner in <i>Aves sin nido</i> the first major Spanish American novel to protest the plight of native peoples.</p> <p>First published in 1889 <i>Birds without a Nest</i> drew fiery protests for its unsparing expose of small town officials judicial authorities and priests who oppressed the native peoples of Peru. Matto de Turner was excommunicated by the Catholic Church and burned in effigy. Yet her novel was strongly influential; indeed Peruvian President Andres Avelino Caceres credited it with stimulating him to pursue needed reforms.</p> <p>In 1904 the novel was published in a bowdlerized English translation with a modified ending. This edition restores the original ending and the translator's omissions. It will be important reading for all students of the indigenous cultures of South America.</p>