This is the second English-language abridgement and translation of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno, an early colonial-period chronicle of the Andean past that transcends the Inca and Spanish conquests. The author, about whom little is known, appears to have been a member of the local nobility of the central highlands of Peru, as well as a speaker of Quechua, Aymara, and Spanish. The first English rendition, also an abridgement, was the eminently readable but not altogether satisfactory Letter to a King: A Peruvian Chief’s Account of Life under the Incas and under Spanish Rule, [translated], arranged, and edited with an introduction by Christopher Dilke, an amateur historian and traveler (Dutton, 1978).

David Frye is a professional anthropologist and skilled translator. His previous work includes Indians into Mexicans: History and Identity in a Mexican Town (University of Texas Press, 1996), a revision of...

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