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The Emerald Lizard: Fifteen Latin American Tales to Tell/La lagartija esmeralda: Quince cuentos tradicionales Latinoamericanos. By Pleasant DeSpain. Trans. Mario Lamo-Jimenez. Illustrations by Don Bell. (Little Rock: August House, 1999. Pp. 183, acknowledgments, introduction, notes.)
HOLLY G. WILLETT
Rowan University
Pleasant DeSpain has been telling stories professionally for about 30 years, performing on his own television program based in Seattle as well as before "live" audiences throughout the country and internationally. In this attractively designed volume, he retells myths, legends, and folktales culled from his travels in South and Central America and the Caribbean and his research in published collections of pre-Columbian literature and folktales. The cultural history of the region is summarized in a single paragraph in the two-page introduction, while DeSpain uses the rest of the introduction to tell the story of his becoming a storyteller. About the stories themselves, he says that "each contains original imagery, pacing, and most significandy, a narrative voice that can only be achieved through years of telling aloud. Most importantly ... [these stories] have proven successful with audiences ofall ages" (p. 10). Thus, readers are alerted that the reteller has exercised the storyteller's prerogative to alter tales significantly to fit personal taste and audience preferences. Additionally, there appears to be a double message here. Although the subtitle indicates that the stories were chosen for the use of other storytellers (who presumably have their own narrative voices), DeSpain clearly conveys his sense of having created the specific forms of these narratives as published, implying ownership of them. Perhaps...