Our Lady of Guadalupe

by Francisco Serrano, Felipe Dávalos (Illustrator), Eugenia Guzman (Paper Engineering)

An inspirational retelling of the still powerfully moving legend of Our Lady of Guadalupe, seen by a Mexican peasant only ten years after the fall of the Aztec Empire in 1531, features three-dimensional pop-up illustrations.

Genres: Picture Books

12 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1998

About the author

Nació en la Ciudad de México el 27 de junio de 1949. Poeta. Cursó estudios de Ciencias Políticas, Filosofía y Cine en la unam; y de Literatura Francesa en la Universidad de la Sorbona en París. Becario del cme, 1973-1974. Durante varios años trabajó en la administración pública cultural de México. Ha sido coordinador de publicaciones de la dgp de la sep, 1981-1982; director de Relaciones Internacionales 1983-1985 y director de la revista México en el Arte del inba coordinador de asesores de la Subsecretaría de Cooperación Internacional de la sre, 1991-1992 y del inah, 1992-1993. Colaborador de Casa del Tiempo, Diálogos, El Nacional, El Semanario Cultural, Guchachi’ Reza, La Jornada Semanal, La Letra y la Imagen, México en el Arte, Nexos, Pauta, Plural, Revista de Bellas Artes, Revista Universidad de México, Sábado, y Vuelta. Sus obras en colaboración con compositores incluyen: La rosa de Ariadna, libreto de ópera sobre el poema homónimo, con Gualtero Dazzi, 1995; Orpheus in Underland, libreto para comedia musical en cinco lenguas paródicas, con Aldo Brizzi, 1997; En susurros los muertos, libreto para una tragedia musical, con Gualtiero Dazz, 1998.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A real experience of magical realism, anyone? This actually is a true story of what happened to me some years back in Tijuana, Mexico. Some time following, I wrote this poem:

THE VISION

It happened in Tijuana
When I took the train down from San Diego
On the day off from my publishing meeting.

It was a cold, winter day and I wore only a light sweater.
After an hour of walking the narrow streets of Tijuana
Where vendors sold everything to tourists,
From leather jackets, peanuts and piñatas,
To ladies jeweled dresses and maracas
I began to feel feverish.

A few more minutes of walking
And I knew I had to act fast.
As a first step I bought
A wool red and white poncho
From a street vendor and asked him for the location
Of a church.
I figured a church was a good place to lie down,
And Mexico being a strong Catholic country
Would have many churches.
I wasn’t wrong.
The Mexican vendor pointed to the next street
And told me to turn right and go down three blocks.

Being Thursday I thought I’d have
The church all to myself.
Boy, was I wrong.
The church was jammed packed.
Mexicans not only filling the pews,
But Mexicans
Standing tight together all over the place.
Well, I had a fever and had to do what I had to do.
I squeezed through the crowd
Until my back was against a pillar.
I slid down the pillar so
My rump was on the floor,
Knees to my chest, back and head
Resting against the pillar.

Instantly I fell asleep.
After what must have been an hour
Covered in sweat, I slowly started coming out of sleep,
And could feel my fever breaking.
Still with my eyes closed and still mostly asleep,
I could hear singing
Sounding like the voices of angels.
I was so disoriented I thought I passed from my body.
So this is what the afterlife is like, I thought.
Still with my eyes closed
I saw the vision of a glowing goddess angel
Framed by angelic singing.

Slowly, very slowly, I started to open my eyes.
I could see the back of many legs.
I looked up and saw a white and gold ceiling.
It all came back to me:
I didn’t die after all,
I had a fever,
I entered this jam packed Mexican church.
I squeezed my way to this pillar,
I sat down and fell asleep.

I remained sitting.
Still listening to the music, remembering my
Vision of the gold and white goddess angel.

It felt good to sit and rest.
I couldn’t get over the packed Mexican church
On Thursday!
Mexican teenagers on their tiptoes,
Straining to get a glimpse of the priest;
Smiling, well-dressed young men handing out programs.
Men and woman packed next to one another.
And everybody so excited. What is all this?

After I rested some more,
I made my way to my feet and squeezed back
Out of the church and walked back down the street
To where I bought the poncho.
I asked the Mexican vendor
Why the church was so packed.
He said, “Today is a big celebration;
Today is the day the Virgin Mary
Appeared in Mexico
Today is the day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

I used my head and didn’t tell him about my vision.
For I reasoned that if I did all those excited Mexicans
Might nail me to a cross and parade me
Through their narrow streets,
Me of all people, a goofy non-Catholic gringo tourist,
Having a clear, ecstatic vision
Of their Lady of Guadalupe.

[Elizabeth]

I feel moderately inept at how long it took me to figure out how work a bunch of the engineered paper in this book. Once I figured it out, there are some neat usages -- like when the Lady tells Juan Diego to pick flowers, we see him looking at a hillside of cacti, but you can pull a tab and flowers erupt.

(I also think it's really interesting, in a story about how the Lady wants a house/temple/church built, the bishop feels like he's in prison because the fancy bars protecting his office, as opposed to the very open feel of the outdoors scenes -- I mean, the shrine itself gets a nice big pop-up at the end... and I assume the bars are meant to indicate how the bishop is keeping himself separate from the people, as opposed to what the Lady wants... Anyway, it was impressive to manage to convey such a feeling of being constrained in a literal pop-up [which by its very nature is popping out and taking up more space].)

As with many versions of the Our Lady of Guadalupe story, I wish this touched on why Juan Diego went to get a priest when his uncle was near death (i.e., Last Rites), because (especially as a non-Catholic) I'm like, "Why not go to the Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, who clearly likes you, and ask her to heal him?"

[Highkerpat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, fun, pop-up tells the story of how the Virgin of Guadalupe became Mexico's patron saint.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully engineered pop up book.