Even for a first time traveler to the highlands of Peru, like me, it becomes obvious that, though the Spanish conquistadores tried to eradicate the Quechuan culture, they did not succeed; and that now, in 2017, indigenous cultures in Peru are thriving; the story is not over. In this book I have paired the writings that a member of an Incan royal family, Garcilaso de la Vega El Inca, recorded in 1609, with photographs of Cusco and environs from my recent journey to Peru in 2017. An epilogue, “there is no such thing as a one-way land bridge,” by the North American Muscogee poet, Joy Harjo, provides a perspective on the writing of history. Whose story gathers credence, and why?

Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru
By Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca, Translated by Harold V. Livermore. 1966. Used by permission of University of Texas Press.

“there is no such thing as a one-way land bridge”, from A MAP TO THE NEXT WORLD: POEMS AND TALES by Joy Harjo. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. This selection may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the publisher. https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780393320961

Photographs by Sarah Starr. All Rights Reserved.