Mario Roberto Morales. Face of the Earth, Heart of the Sky [Señores bajo los árboles]. Tr. Edward Waters Hood. Tempe, AZ. Bilingual Review Press. 2000. 156 pp. Paper: $11.00;
ISBN 0-927534-88-6.

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Face of the Earth, Heart of the Sky depicts the horrors of the Guatemalan civil war of the 1980s. In this experimental testimonial novel, Mario Roberto Morales makes a conscious effort to reflect the distinct voices of the elderly, the children, and the men and women whose stories he has collected. Weaving together the voices of victims from both the political right and the left, the work searches for balance rather than easy answers, giving it a power and credence that most novels on war never achieve. One the leading Central American novelists, Morales was also a member of the Guatemalan guerilla army for many years before being arrested and imprisoned by the Sandinistas for denouncing the movement's participation in the massacre of indigenous peoples.