Paradoxically when these narratives connect with each other through a readership, the personal tends toward the global.Ĭonsider that it took only one generation from the Spanish landings in the Caribbean to the utter transformation of societies stretching from Bala California to Chile into slave encampments run by illiterate thugs supported by a religious ideology of submission to their authority. Only a fictional narrative can allow events of global import to become experiences of personal significance. The personal implications of historical trauma tend to go unnoticed in academic history. But in this fictional account of the conquest of Peru and the Incan Empire, he is able to add an emotional and spiritual dimension which is not evident in the bare facts of a population, or a people, or a civilisation devastated by the invasion. Ronald Wright’s previous non-fiction historical summary of the European invasion of America, Stolen Continents, is a compelling revision of the standard myths of the civilising effects of white culture. There’s a reason to read good historical fiction. Only then can he be reunited with the love of his life and begin the search for his shattered family, journeying through a land and a time vividly depicted here.īased closely on real historical events, The Gold Eaters draws on Ronald Wright’s imaginative skill as a novelist and his deep knowledge of South America to bring alive an epic struggle that laid the foundations of the modern world. To survive, he must not only learn political gamesmanship but also discover who he truly is, and in what country and culture he belongs. Forced to become Francisco Pizarro's translator, he finds himself caught up in one of history's great clashes of civilzations, the Spanish invasion of the Incan Empire of the 1530s. Kidnapped at sea by conquistadors seeking the golden land of Peru, a young Inca boy named Waman is the everyman thrown into extraordinary circumstances. “Utterly irresistible… The Gold Eaters is truly the gold standard to which all fiction - historical and otherwise - should aspire.” - BuzzfeedĪ sweeping, epic historical novel of exploration and invasion, of conquest and resistance, and of an enduring love that must overcome the destruction of one empire by another.

The gold eaters by ronald wright