The New World Of Martin Cortes

"Martin Cortes was the first, and illegitimate, son of the conquistador Hernan Cortes and a Native American woman - the legendary Malinche, who translated for Cortez during the conquest of the Aztecs. Taken from his mother as an infant, he was raised by paternal relatives. At six he went to Spain with his father to become a page in the service of the Spanish royal court. In his twenties, Martin served as a soldier in Spain's army. Returning to Mexico, Martin was ultimately tortured for resisting the Spanish Crown. Exiled from his birthplace, he died far from anywhere he might call home." "In The New World of Martin Cortez, Anna Lanyon takes us on a journey of historical discovery evoking those extraordinary times when two empires - Spain and Mexico - collided. This is a tale of intrigue and identity exploring Martin Cortes's relations with his famous father, his half-brother of the same father, his mother's indigenous people, and his father's noble peers. As Lanyon unearths the life and times of Martin Cortes, we learn also something about the processes of history and legend and on the nature of the human spirit caught between conflicting worlds."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.