Had fun launching Anna Lanyon's third book - Fire & Song, The Story of Luis de Carvajal and the Mexican Inquisition - at Blarney Books & Art in Port Fairy last Thursday evening. The hardest part of the evening was getting half-way close to the pronunciation of that Carvajal family name.
This is Anna's third book (all published by Allen & Unwin) and, like Malinche's Conquest and The New World of Martin Cortes, explores events that occurred in Mexico during the sixteenth century. I'm not going to say too much about Fire & Song here because I'll be interviewing Anna soon for The View From Here, and no doubt will get my two bob's worth in then. However, it's a fascinating story - told often through the translated words of Luis de Carvajal and the transcripts of Holy Office records (which are remarkably detailed), but held together by Anna's wonderful gift to recognise and tell a darn good story.
I listed the blurb in an earlier post last week.
