Overview

Sixteen-year-old Lela Itzel is deeply inconvenienced when her mother calls her U.S. boarding school demanding her presence at a funeral. Her great aunt and former nun has been gunned down in front of her home in Guatemala City. Why would they shoot an old lady, Itzel wonders, even if she had been a rebel? Inconvenience turns to wonder and excitement as she enters the dangerous ceasefire world of Guatemala just after hostilities have ended. Both her parents had fled the country just prior to Itzel's birth in the U.S. and this is her first return to the land of her heritage. At first she is overwhelmed with stories of her parent's exploits as a doctor and nurse with the rebels during the civil war. Her personal transition has already begun when the stories of other family members on both sides of the conflict emerge during the course of the visit. Then Itzel makes a mistake. Partly through her own over-confidence in a land she doe not yet understand and partly through factors unknown to her and her parents, she becomes subject of an intense search by the prosecutor's office and the feared judiciales, a non-uniformed group of law enforcement officers still functioning with impunity after the ceasefire. At her school, Itzel is a varsity oarswoman who is used to extreme training and finely honed physical condition. In a particularly poignant sweat-lodge scene, her training and competitive attitude leads the second step in her transformation: she takes responsibility for getting herself out of the situation. Something has changed, thinks the old compa who is trying to help her. Although aided by unknowing friends from school and the old companero (and former enemy of her father), they are all captured and faced with a horrendous choices leading to radical personal transformation. Eleven Days is a tense, fast moving story of both heroism and failure and above all the expansion of the human spirit.

Full Product Details

9781536868753

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available