Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings

The Popol Vuh, the Quiché Mayan book of creation, is one of the most extraordinary documents of the human imagination and the most important text in the native languages of the Americas. It begins with the deeds of Mayan gods in the darkness of a primeval sea and ends with the radiant splendor of the Mayan lords who founded the Quiché kingdom in the Guatemalan highlands. Originally written in Mayan hieroglyphs, it was transcribed into the Roman alphabet in the sixteenth century. This is the first unabridged English edition of the work, in Dennis Tedlock's widely praised translation, with a full introduction and commentaries on the text.

Dennis Tedlock, professor of anthropology and religion at Boston University, is the author of Finding the Centre: Narrative Poetry of the Zuni Indians and The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation, and the coeditor of Teachings from the American Earth: Indian Religion and Philosophy

Popol Vuh is one of the great books about the creation of the world. It is the Mayan Bible...[a] magnificent effort in rendering in contemporary English a book that speaks to the ages on the original identity between history and poetry - Carlos Fuentes

Dennis Tedlock's splendid version...[is] the work of a brilliant anthropologist who is also a true 'poet-of-performance,' himself trained by a native Quiché master...Superb notes and glossary...An event of quite exceptional importance. - William Arrowsmith, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature, Emory University

There have been many translations of the Popol Vuh; this is not only the best and most authoritative, it is also the most readable. - Michael D. Coe, Professor of Anthropology, Yale University

Tedlock's translation is sensitive, precise, and illuminating. It will greatly help the Popol Vuh achieve its rightful place as a masterpiece of religious writing, familiar to all those who seek a message that transcends ordinary concerns. - Vine Deloria, Jr., author, Custer Died for Your Sins

The volume is required reading for everyone seriously interested in native American literature or in Meso-American cultural history. Its publication is a major event. - Los Angeles Times

In the Popol Vuh all meanings are multiple...Tedlock pays special attention to the cadences of living speech underlying its ceremonial utterances...Tedlock's is a clear-eyed, eloquent work. - The Village Voice

Dennis Tedlock is McNulty Professor of English and Research Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the coeditor of American Anthropologist and the author of several books.