Customer Reviews

The Story of Colors / La Historia de los Colores: A Bilingual Folktale from the Jungles of Chiapas (English and Spanish Edition)

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Subcomandante Marcos uses this folktale as an instrument to teach adults and children alike the importance of all colors. This folktale helps us to understand the present situation in Chiapas since not every color is being respected, i.e. the peoples of color. A well written story with beautiful pictures, a book that should be in every primary school classroom.

This book is a wonderful folktale from the idigenous people of Chiapas, Mexico. The original text is taken from the communiqué dated October 27, 1994 from Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos to the Mexican People. Originally published in Mexico with illustrations by Domitila Domínguez as La Historia de los Colores © 1996 by Colectivo Callejero, Guadalajara.

The amazing thing about this book is the controversy it caused. On March 9, 1999, the National Endowment for the Arts revoked the funding for the book. This was a clear instance of the NEA revoking funding for issues dealing with cultural diversity. Cinco Puntos Press fought to publish and distribute this book. You can read more about Cinco Puntos' fight for this book by visiting their website:

http://www.cincopuntos.com/storyofcolors.ssd


Told by Subcommandante Marcos, who is the spokesperson for the indigenous army currently at war with the Mexican Government, The Story of Colors is a lovely little folktale written with such virtuosity, that you can imagine sitting at Don Antonio's feet and hear his voice as he tells how colors came to the world. Marcos is known for being a wonderful storyteller and he is at is best in this amazing story of the Colors. The illustrations by Domitilla Dominguez who is indigenous from Oaxaca are beautiful and quite stunning. They perfectly compliment the story and give a fantastic feel to the book. This book is a treasure in many ways. For me, the biggest pleasure of this book is knowing how it was almost kept from us by the NEA.

This beautifully written book captures the essence of Old man Antonio's retelling of "La historia de los colores". As you read the book you realize the wonder, joy, respect, & genuine love for nature that is transmitted through the story. The spanish version of the book is written in such a way that you can 'hear' Antonio speak. I loved this book and recommend it to anyone who has a true appreciation for word usage and the beauty of language.

Who was that masked man?

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos has crafted a different kind of revolution and with it, a different revolutionary story. This isn't another boring tome, that competes with the author's Kalishnakov repair manual for dreary tedium. In this book, targetted at children (and those who were once children), we read of colorful birds and quarrelling gods. More powerful fare than class warfare or guerrilla strategies.

The book begins with a walk up a hill in Chiapas. Well, actually, we read "I light my pipe, and after three ceremonial puffs, I begin to tell you--just the way old Antonio used to tell it--"

Already we are invited to a different world, a world where stories don't appear in living color between commercials, as a means of inducing consumption. If we accept this invitation, succeeding pages take us up a hill where "el viejo Antonio" takes time out from a journey to share a more colorful universe with the "Insurgente."

The masked revolutionary turns back and sits down with the old one, who ignores his concern about reaching the village before the rain falls. Rain only endangers evil witches in Oz. Here in Chiapas, something more important bursts into our constructed reality, and we are transported to a world of black and white. No real colors. Only grey, to keep the black of night and the white of day from bumping into each other too hard. This is a world where the seven gods who created all things have disappeared. In this bleak landscape, only blind people and quarelsome, sleeply gods remain.

In the course of the story we learn many things. We hear the story of an unfamiliar culture. It's a fun story, playful, suitable for children. And it's a fable, a morality play about many practical things--looking where you're walking, not climbing too high, just about everything except running with a machete in your hands.

But, beneath these relatively harmless layers, lies more substantial material. The story evokes archetypes largely ignored by our plastic Ken & Barbie culture. We seek comfort and security over nearly every other goal. La Historia de los Colores insinuates that breakthroughs come only when comfort is disrupted. The theme of the story, moving from a perspective of Black and White (with a little gray buffer zone) to Full Spectrum Color, well, many a doctoral dissertation could be written about the philosophical, psychological, sociological and political implications. But let's not engage in that level of intellectual masturbation. Read the book. Hear the story. Allow the brilliant illustrations to color your day.

Why are you still reading this review? El viejo Antonio isn't going to sit on that hilltop forever, catching his breath. The rainbow will fade and Insurgente Marcos will reach the village. Then the only colors you'll have will plaster the screen of your TV, encouraging you to buy something to make you forget that you just missed out on an epic spiritual experience masquerading as a children's book.

This is an excellent book for children and adults. It has beautiful pictures illustrating the introduction of colors into the world. Great for those interested in Indigenous mythology.

Subcommandante Marcos' La Historia de los Colores represents one of the most recent examples of a tradition of didactic story-telling that dates back at least to Aesop's Fables. The simplicity of the language, and of the book's moral, when coupled with its lavish pictures, naturally endears itself towards a child audience. The bilingual nature of the work (the narrative is told in Spanish and in English) means furthermore that the book is not entirely devoid of educational merit. Turning to the moral of the tale, whatever one may think of it's author - and I happen to believe that Marcos is fulfilling a necessasry role in that particular part of the world at this particular time - the book's message is unimpeachable, for it is cultural rather than political. Another of Amazon's reviewers has dubbed it 'Mein Kampf for children', however, it is in actuality the very antithesis of this. Mein Kampf, it will be remembered, preached the racial and cultural supremacy of a single Master Race: La Historia de Los Colores, on the other hand, preaches the intrinsic merit of a plurality of cultures and beliefs: diversity for diversity's sake one might almost say.

Un libro excelente para que niños y niñas de todo el mundo desarrollen consciencia de la existencia de otros pueblos, culturas, historias, cuentos, tradiciones y seres humanos. La publicación de este libro en Español e Inglés en el mismo texto es una muestra de la importancia de romper barreras que tanto nos dividen, como el idioma. Las pinturas de Domitila son hermosísimas y la narración de Marcos está al nivel de todo el que aprecie la simpleza y a la vez, la complejidad de una comunidad global dividida por colores, razas y etnicidades. Está dirigido a todas las edades y las nacionalidades. Excelente.

Subcomandante Marcos continues to impress me with his beautifully poetic writings. He is a master of using folktale as way of teaching both adults and children to understand what is really going on in Chiapas. This is a very well written story with beautiful pictures that can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

This book is for those who come after, for those whose world we, adults, are supposed to help build. This is to tell them: "Yes, it is possible. Dreams are necessary and possible." And when the time comes to defend your dreams, just do it. For those with bare Spanish the writing style may look a little startling, as it is carefully crafted in the Mayan undertaking of Cervantes' language. Yet, this adds up to the charm and magic of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos' book. If this wasn't enough there's the individual story of this book published after the wimpy Nat'l Endowment for the Arts withdrew its support. Domitila's colored images are the perfect envelope for La Historia de los Colores. I wish I was 5 again and that someone would have given me this book... How much would I have learned!

I have follow Subcomandate Marco's writings since the start of the Zapatista movement and have always find it fascinating. He takes serious thoughts and makes them into an amazing journey of culture, fairness, empathy, and even fun, making you think beyond the text.

This story is not exception.