Almuzara 2021

XXXVII JAÉN NOVEL PRIZE

Eight years before Hernán Cortés arrived in what is now Mexico, a Spanish ship sank off the coast of Jamaica, and the currents carried the survivors to the shores of Yucatán. There, they were captured by the Maya, and only two men survived: Jerónimo de Aguilar, a young cleric, who was made a slave; and Gonzalo Guerrero, a seasoned soldier, who found himself after confronting a jaguar in a dense, remote jungle, later starting a family with an indigenous woman and becoming a prominent Maya leader, a precursor of mestizaje.