
Stealing Benefacio's Roses
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $40.46
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Martín Prechtel
-
By:
-
Martín Prechtel
Following the acclaimed Secrets of the Talking Jaguar and Long Life, Honey in the Heart, this is an expansive lyrical novel in the tradition of Indigenous oral storytelling.
Based on the author's many years of living in a Guatemalan village, Stealing Benefacio's Roses interweaves dramatic recountings of village life and the political horrors of civil war with lyric retellings of sacred Mayan myths. The story shifts expertly from timeless, with archetypal characters like Raggedy Boy and the goddess known as the Water-Skirted Beauty, to timely in the book's striking first-person narrative set in the 1980s. Prechtel shows how ancient myths can become a part of life for everyone and help nurture spiritual survival in the modern world. Though it comes third in sequence with the author's other two books, Stealing Benefacio's Roses also stands on its own as a classic work of spiritual seeking and adventure.
©2021 Martín Prechtel (P)2021 North Atlantic BooksListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
"Once in a decade you read a book that, for a time, renders all other books irrelevant, trivial or extraneous - Stealing Benefacio's Roses is one of these peak moments in recent literature." (Richard Grossinger)
People who viewed this also viewed...




Gorgeous
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thanks so much & all good blessings this book, May much nourishing come!
Read everything Martin Prechtel offers, please!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A beautiful, relevant tale
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A Story that Wants to Be Heard
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I read this book a long time ago
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The depth of the story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
And then along comes wonderful, wise, gentle Martin Prechtel and his powerful, mellifluous, flowering, glorious, jungle-thick, Atitlan-deep writing, all about a very similar, tragic, lost realm, one filled with magical beings and seemingly ordinary people who rose to the challenge to do noble, extraordinary things in a valiant attempt to save their own precious world from falling into darkness. Laden with myths, music, lyrical poetry, cliffhanging adventures, evildoers, petty tyrants, brave young men, mystical maidens, natural beauty, and above all, tragic, poignant, heartbreaking romance, I’ve rediscovered a new world of intense beauty that touches not just my soul, but the weary indigenous heart that had been half asleep, half awake, longing to listen, wide eyed, innocent and rapt with attention, to a story being told in just this way, by just such a voice. all these long, long years, so that I could believe once again in magic and that this world was worth fighting for, still.
And again I do believe, and life is quite changed and I may never be the same from this experience. It’s true!
While reading his works is very enjoyable, I’ve found that listening to him tell these tales of his life and the magical, yet very real and horribly tragic realm of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala gives them a deeper richness and intimacy. Martin Prechtel casts a spell, but he is truly funny, too, as he reads. (Such a treat to hear him laugh at his own jokes, heh heh.)
All his books have landed now amongst my favorites, but most especially this, the lovely “Stealing Benifacio’s Roses”. Highly, highly recommended.
Breathtakingly beautiful—stirs your indigenous soul back to life!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Exquisite Literary Craftsmanship
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
First few chapters alone are worth their own book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A Gift and a teaching
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.