Assault on Paradise

Winner of the 1995 Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize, Assault on Paradise vividly depicts how the Conquistadores and the Church invaded Central America, impoverishing one world to enrich another.

In a prize-winning novel of fast-paced, bawdy, swash-buckling adventure in Central America of the early 1700s, Costa Rican novelist Tatiana Lobo excoriates the black legacy of Conquistadores and church. With cinematographic flair, she counterpoints the picaresque against a reverent poetic re-creation of Mayan mythology, the mystical values of which the natives seek to use to drive out the invaders from their Popul Vuh world.

"....Assault on Paradise can be considered a critique of colonialism and its cruelties, it is not only that. For in her portrayal of its feckless hero, Lobo moves her novel well beyond polemic and into the realm of art." -- The New York Times Book Review

Assault on Paradise vividly depicts the Conquistadores and the Church invading Central America, impoverishing one world to enrich another. In a fast-paced, bawdy, swashbuckling adventure in Central America of the early 1700s, Costa Rican novelist Tatiana Lobo lays bare the dark legacy of the Conquistadores and the Church. Through the central picaresque story of Pedro Albaran, Lobo dramatizes the intrigues of politicians and the Inquisition and the bloody battles between the native people and the invaders, while simultaneously presenting a reverent poetic recreation of indigenous cosmogony and mystical values which the natives seek to use to drive out the invaders.

Lobo was born in Puerto Montt, Chile and studied theatre and painting at the University of Chile. She now lives in Costa Rica.

Pa-brú Presbere dreams of Surá, Lord of the Nether World

Of Petro Albarán's first days in a part of the West Indies where the inhabitants impress him as being gossipmongers, backbiters, and troublemakers

Of the passion that possesses the scribe, and of the strange life led by the people of Cartago

Threats loom over Pedro de Albarán and the Inquisition enforces its justice

Pedro sets out on the dangerous route of the missionaries and lets fate steer his course

Of how Agueda Pérez de Muro helped Pedro reconstruct a part of his life intangible as a dream

Pa-brú Presbere is entrusted with a mission by the Kapá

Agueda listens closely to Pedro's story and the description of his meeting with Juan de las Alas

Presbere makes ready

Agueda nods and Pedro relates how Gerónima's departure took him unawares

Pa-brú Presbere attacks

The night of confidences ends and Pedro has a fit of jealousy because of Bárbara Lorenzana

Presbere talks with the Kapá for the last time

Pedro takes a crab for God and finally learns why La Chamberga was looking for him

The new secretary of the Governor's Office entangles himself in his own contradictions as war preparations build

Where is Presbere?

While the war rages Pedro storms Captain Casasola's wardrobe

The war ends and Pedro is left entirely in the dark

The dog days make Cartago unbearable. Hundreds of macaws roost in the bell tower of the church and Juan de las Alas glows with an inner light

The King says thank you