Publisher's Synopsis
La Turca is a stage play loosely based on the entrada (expedition) lead by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. From 1540 to 1542, Coronado's army of some 300 soldiers (plus a few thousand Indian allies and servants) wandered from what is now Compostela, Mexico through Arizona, New Mexico, Northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and back to Compostela. The non-Indian members of the expedition, most of whom had gone into debt to finance their participation, were looking for cities of gold, of which they found none. Although they passed through what are now considered some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world, to the members of the expedition it was all a vast wasteland. La Turca weaves together the West's past and present in a raw drama that explores the ideas and emotions driving individuals and cultures into conflict. The characters are unforgettable and the stakes are high in this fictionalized telling of the first "illegal immigration" into what is now Arizona.
