Publisher's Synopsis
The Witness is a narrative - in which, in sixteenth-century Spain, a cabin boy sets sail on a ship bound for the New World. An inland expedition ends in disaster when it is attacked by Indians. The Witness is a reflection - on memory, on the role of objects in the construction of our world, on the relationship between existence and description, on foreignness, cultural identity and the Other. The Witness is a prose poem - in the purest, most sensory language that remembers the forgotten contribution made by Indians to the creation of Latin America. And the maginficent whole created by the author is far, far greater than the sum of its parts.
