The Beggar's Knife

From one of Guatemala's finest young writers, these twenty-six stories--at once brutal and intensely lyrical--are peopled with sorcerers, ghosts, and assassins.

Springing from myth and beliefs indigenous to Central America and North America, where their action occurs, Rey Rosa's tales give the sense of being dreamed. At the same time they can be read as metaphors for the terror and oppression of years of warfare.

Rodrigo Rey Rosa has based many of his writings and stories on legends and myths that are indigenous to Latin American as well as North Africa. A number of Rey Rosa's works have been translated into English, including; The Path Doubles Back (by Paul Bowles), Dust on her Tongue, The Pelcari Project, The Beggar's Knife, The African Shore, and Severina. Along with his longer writings, he has also written a number of short stories that have been printed in college-level text books, such as Worlds of Fiction, Second Edition by Roberta Rubenstein and Charles R. Larson. A few of these short stories include The Proof, and The Good Cripple. Many of Rey Rosa's works have been translated into seven languages. In the early 1980s, Rey Rosa went to Morocco and became a literary protege of American expatriate writer Paul Bowles, who later translated several of Rey Rosa's works into English. When Bowles died in 1999, Rey Rosa became an executor of his literary estate.