Huatulco, San Miguel de Allende

The Emperor’s Ghost in the Mural: The French Connection to Mexican Muralism

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By Randy Jackson—

On June 19, 1867, on a hill outside Querétaro called the Hill of the Bells, Emperor Maximilian, appointed by Napoleon III to rule a country that had never wanted him, faced a firing squad. His execution reverberated through Mexican and European history. Yet how that moment was understood was shaped not by those who witnessed it, but by those who painted it. In Europe, that response was immediate. In Mexico, it would take decades, passing through a classroom, before it found its voice on the great public walls of the Revolution.

In Paris, Édouard Manet’s series of paintings on the execution, collectively known as The Execution of Emperor Maximilian, demonstrated the power of art to shape historical memory. Painted from written accounts, they portrayed the event as a condemnation of Napoleon III’s imperial folly and were subsequently banned. In Mexico, the effects were slower and paradoxical. The execution did not silence Maximilian’s court painter; it freed him to walk into a classroom and change the course of Mexican art.
When Maximilian’s court collapsed, his retinue fled to the coast. One man, however, walked in the opposite direction, not toward a ship, but toward a classroom in the Mexican National Academy of Fine Arts.

Santiago Rebull
That man was Santiago Rebull, the official court painter to Emperor Maximilian, appointed to use art as an instrument of imperial legitimacy, to make a foreign emperor look like he belonged.

Rebull was born in 1829 to a Catalan father and a Mexican mother. His talent was recognized early. He won first place at the Academy of San Carlos in 1851 with his painting La Muerte de Abel. That victory earned him a scholarship to study in Rome, where he spent seven years, and what he learned there would shape Mexican art, passing through his hands to the students who would later paint the Revolution.

In Rome, at a Catholic arts school, he learned the techniques and principles of the Nazarene Movement. The Nazarenes believed art should serve a moral or religious purpose, and their major project was to revive the medieval art of fresco painting. It was a tradition built for walls, designed to tell stories to anyone who stood before them.

Rebull returned to Mexico in 1859 and, within two years, had risen to Director of the Academy of San Carlos. In 1865, he painted the official portrait of Emperor Maximilian – Retrato de Maximiliano. The Emperor was so pleased that he appointed Rebull as court painter and awarded him the Order of Guadalupe, the Empire’s highest honour.

Within two years, the firing squad on the Hill of the Bells ended that empire. Rebull returned to the classroom carrying everything Europe — and the Empire — had taught him.

The Protégé: Rivera at San Carlos
Diego Rivera was born in Guanajuato in 1886, nineteen years after the firing squad on the Hill of the Bells. When he arrived at the National Academy of Fine Arts at San Carlos as a student at the age of ten, Santiago Rebull was still teaching there.

As director of the Academy and as an instructor who took personal interest in the young Rivera’s progress, Rebull brought his influence to bear beyond technique. He transmitted the Nazarene conviction that scale gave art its purpose. Frescoes were consequential, not just because of their size, but because their ambitions were monumental. Art was meant to instruct, to elevate, to speak to anyone who stood before it. Not for palace staterooms, but for the public walls.

As important as Rebull was to the painting style Rivera came to create, there were two other notable instructors at the Fine Arts Academy of San Carlos.

Félix Parra was a trailblazer in depicting Mexico’s pre-Hispanic past with the dignity usually reserved for emperors. Parra’s painting, Episodes of the Conquest, depicted the brutality of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs. For a young Rivera, it was likely the first time he saw Mexican history treated as something proud and worthy of monumental art.

The other notable instructor was José María Velasco, arguably the greatest landscape painter in Mexican history. With paintings like The Valley of Mexico from the Hill of Santa Isabel, Velasco taught Rivera how to organize a massive, sprawling horizon into a coherent, balanced composition. It was a skill that would serve Rivera well when his canvas became walls and mountains and valleys were replaced by the epic history of Mexico.

By the time Rivera left the Academy at the age of twenty, he had spent half his life under the tutelage of these old masters. He had become a formidable talent recognized by these men, significant artists in their own right. Rebull famously remarked of his student: “He draws as well as I do, and he has a better sense of colour.”
But his education was not finished. Like Rebull before him, Rivera left for Europe on a Mexican government scholarship, spending years in Spain, France and Italy. What he found there, the Cubists of Paris, the great fresco cycles of the Italian Renaissance, only deepened what Rebull had taught him.

The art that would come to define Mexican national identity, defiant, indigenous, and revolutionary, returned home with Diego Rivera. Mexico gained something unexpected from the defeat of the French-appointed emperor. Hidden in plain sight on those great public walls, in the very conviction that art belonged to the people who stood before it, was the ghost of a court painter who had once made a foreign emperor look like he belonged.

Randy Jackson blends local reporting from the perspective of a seasonal Huatulco resident with explorations of life and change in Huatulco, Oaxaca and Mexico.

San Miguel de Allende

Between Names: Yásnaya Aguilar on Being Mixe and the ‘Latino’ Moment

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By Estefanía Camacho—

Latin American pride is rooted in a colonial and undeniably hierarchical category. This is how ayuujk (mixe) writer, linguist, and activist Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil (1981) described it in an interview during the San Miguel Writers’ Conference & Literary Festival in February 2026.

“If we were to arbitrarily mark the history of our peoples with the domestication of maize 10,000 years ago, we would have spent 10,000 years being Zapotec, Mixe, or Nahua, and of those 10,000 years, 500 as Indians and 200 as Indigenous. So where does ‘Latino’ come from?” questions Yásnaya, with her long, straight black hair, wearing black-framed glasses with a small cat-ear-like detail at the top.

She explains that “Latino” is a label that originated in France in the 19th century, coined to distinguish between two types of colonization in this part of the continent: Anglo-Saxon America and Latin America.

“’Latina’ has to do with the fact that we were oppressed (…) it is a category produced by a colonialist process. Therefore, there are peoples who have not been fully Latinized,” she explains, referring to the different Indigenous populations across the territory, who continue to keep languages alive outside Spanish and their own roots.

“Latino” in Spanish—not to be confused with how it is used in the United States—is a category that has not only regained relevance but has also gained strength in response to racist actions, especially in that country, primarily against Spanish-speaking migrants or racially profiled Americans.

Yásnaya, translator too, also understands the nuance of “Latino” as a “weapon of resistance,” but she asks that it should not be used as a folklorizing essentialization of something that comes from a violent process such as colonization, and that it remains as an external label.

The category of “Latino” and that of “Indigenous”
Yásnaya says that when she travels to other regions, she is invariably categorized as Latina, regardless of the fact that she is ayuujk and—if anything—identifies as Indigenous.

“In Europe I was Mexican, in Mexico I am Oaxacan, in Oaxaca I am Mixe, in the sierra I am usually from Ayutla. At some point I am Indigenous, but that was something I was told or intuited through contrast before the name even arrived. During an extraterrestrial attack, I will surely be an Earthling, and I will be so with passion,” she wrote in her first book “Ää: manifiestos sobre la diversidad lingüística” (Almadía, 2023).

She has frequently pointed out in her research and columns that patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist systems seek to turn “the other” as a mechanism into a homogeneous, monolithic entity in order to oppress them.

Just as with the category “Latina,” the same happens in Mexico when the category “Indigenous” is adopted as a whole, without mentioning the 68 Indigenous peoples who live in the country, including Afro-Mexicans, who represent at least 10% of the total population.
“Indigenous is a category created by a system of oppression; it is not an essence of our peoples. It is a political moment in our history. We were not always Indigenous,” Yásnaya said. “In the end, in the future, hopefully we can be Mixe without being Indigenous. Because that has already happened. That would mean there is no longer oppression,” the writer proposes.

She explained during her keynote lecture at the literary conference that in Mexico there are 11 Indo-American language families within the 68 groupings of languages, and these in turn belong to 365 distinct linguistic systems, according to the National Catalog of Indigenous Languages. “What generalization can be made about such diversity? None. What exists is a diversity of traditions and poetic mechanisms,” she added.

Now everyone wants to be Latino?
“Now everyone wants to be Latino, but they lack flavor,” sang the world’s most famous musician, Bad Bunny, in his song “El Apagón” during the halftime show of the 2026 Super Bowl.

The surge in pride around the “Latino” category was especially visible during this event in the United States, but it was also observed across much of the world. The Puerto Rican singer went on a global tour in 2025, although he skipped performing in the US out of concern that anti-immigrant raids could be organized at his concerts. The Super Bowl was the only performance he gave there, and the performance was loaded with symbolism, alluding to an independent Puerto Rico and America as a continent and not merely as the “country.”

However, Yásnaya questioned the emotional weight and sense of pride attached to the label “latino” in the days following the event: “That America that continues to resist the effects of colonization is not even America; it is Abya Yala,” she wrote a few days after the Super Bowl in her El País column titled “¿América Latina o América latinizada?. Xëëmo’oy”

There is still resistance to European colonization from the territory, just as there is today from communities resisting other processes driven by contemporary imperialism.

Spanish, its defense, and shifting contexts
In a context where speaking Spanish can be a risk in a country like the United States, or where it was fiercely defended once it was announced that Bad Bunny would headline the Super Bowl halftime show, Yásnaya explains that it is not a hegemonic language.
“I had always seen Spanish as an enemy because it is erasing my language, right? The first time I went to Los Angeles and spoke with migrant communities, I realized that their experiences were the same as mine in school and with discrimination. So Spanish is not always hegemonic; in reality, we cannot see it only as English versus Spanish and Spanish versus Indigenous languages. There are many layers of complexity,” she said.

During the interview, she also mentioned that as a linguist, she is aware that due to structural asymmetry, she cannot have something as basic as a Mixe dictionary. “Something that is so basic for another language,” she says, “you can go to a bookstore and buy books in Spanish and buy a dictionary where the words are in Spanish and the definitions are also in Spanish. I cannot have a dictionary in Mixe where the definitions are in Mixe. At best, they are bilingual.”
However, she does not see it as far off that a Mixe dictionary with definitions in Mixe could exist.

Defending diversity and multidiversity
“In short, I would not have learned about myself, about what I speak of, through the lens, the eyes, the language of others,” she also wrote in her 2023 book.

Yásnaya has been an activist for linguistic rights, Indigenous autonomy, and the revitalization of indigenous languages, while also consistently advocating against climate change and for the defense of land and resources.

She also writes about celebrating otherness and plurality, as she believes that at this moment in history there are too many “ideological political monocultures” threatening the world, as she warned during the conference.

“Let us remember that monolingual utopias, or futures designed in a monolingual way, are characteristic of the far right.”

Estefanía Camacho is a freelance Mexican journalist working across media and digital magazines. She is a specialist in gender, SMEs, economics, and business.

Huatulco, San Miguel de Allende

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer—

“Peace cannot exist without justice, justice cannot exist without fairness, fairness cannot exist without development, development cannot exist without democracy, democracy cannot exist without respect for the identity and worth of cultures and peoples.”
–Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Guatemalan
Indigenous Rights Activist, 1990 UNESCO Prize for Peace Education, 1992 Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Mexico is often misunderstood. For many outsiders, the country exists as a kind of postcard: bright colors, mariachis on every corner, sombreros, tequila, and fiesta. The image has become so exaggerated that it borders on parody. Mexico is reduced to a handful of clichés that flatten the depth and diversity of the country. The reality is much more layered.

One of the things that has struck me most during my years living here is how strongly people identify simply as Mexican. In Canada or the United States, identity is often expressed through hyphenated heritage; Italian-American, Chinese-Canadian, Irish-American. Cultural roots remain visible and frequently celebrated.

In Mexico, those histories are often quieter, woven into the fabric of everyday life rather than worn on the surface. The result is a national identity that feels cohesive, but it can also obscure just how many different cultures have helped shape the country.

Like many countries, Mexico wrestles with questions of identity, belonging, and prejudice. Conversations around gentrification, migration, and “foreigners” have become increasingly heated in recent years. At the same time, Mexico itself has been shaped by centuries of migration.

Indigenous civilizations laid the foundations of this culture long before the arrival of Europeans. Spanish colonization profoundly altered the landscape. Later came immigrants from France, Lebanon, Germany, China, and beyond. Each group left its mark—sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. We see these influences in architecture, food, language, music, fashion, and even urban planning.

This month, The Eye explores one of those threads: the French connection. From pastry techniques that transformed Mexican bakeries to artistic exchange, architecture, and politics, the relationship runs deeper than many people realize. Recognizing these influences does not diminish Mexico’s Indigenous heritage. One of the country’s greatest strengths is that Indigenous traditions are visible in daily life in ways that are rare in the rest of North America.

But culture is never static. It evolves, absorbs, adapts, and reinvents itself. Mexican culture, as we know it today, is the result of centuries of exchange layered together into something entirely its own. That complexity is not a weakness. It is one of Mexico’s greatest strengths.

Thanks for reading and see you next month!

 

Huatulco

Osta, Artist of the World (Borders are Lines on a Map)

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By José Palacios y Román

Andrew Osta is an artist of the world. Speaking Slavic languages like Ukrainian and Russian, and having to learn English as a third language to pursue a university degree in Canada, Andrew went on to teach English in South Korea. Here he learned to speak basic Korean and write its characters. As he began painting, destiny brought both challenges and opportunities such as delving into shamanism in Peru and later settling in Mexico to master Latin American Spanish. When Osta returned from Peru after experiencing medicine journeys with ayahuasca, he continued painting and was invited by the master Pablo Amaringo for an exhibition. It was this experience that marked a turning point and a milestone in his career.

The following year, he decided to settle in the picturesque and attractive town of San Miguel de Allende in the state of Guanajuato. He was struck by the neo-Gothic church of San Miguel Arcángel, which Osta has painted countless times. This parish is the city’s main symbol and a quintessential example of pink quarry stone and twin towers in Mexico. San Miguel de Allende welcomed Osta; he makes friends easily despite being introverted, and the art market has supported him in being a full-time artist. Osta frequently exhibits his work in San Miguel de Allende, where galleries and exhibition centers showcase his art. His presence is appreciated, recognized, and met with great affection.

Osta enjoys traveling to Oaxaca City, and from there to the San José del Pacífico area, where he has his spiritual brothers and sisters. He has spent many days in Huatulco recreating the beaches of this destination for over a decade.

In the Tangolunda hotel zone, at the Copalli Art Gallery, Andrew Osta held his first solo exhibition on January 12, 2024, featuring some twenty works in both large and small formats, which were enjoyed by the public. Several pieces have been purchased by Huatulco residents and now hang on their walls. Since then, Osta has been an exclusive artist with Copalli, and the gallery has exhibited his paintings for sale in boutique hotels and various exhibitions in the region.

Osta lives in a beautiful home at the foot of Cerro de San Felipe, very close to the city of Oaxaca. He frequently visits Huatulco because he loves the sun, the sea, and the surrounding nature, which inspire him to continue painting. It continues to be a true pleasure to spend time with his family: his ever-smiling wife, Ninfa, and their two children, Nicolas (Niko) and Elenita, who inherited his creativity and sweet nature.

Andrew Osta’s work is on permanent display at Copalli Art Gallery, open daily from 10 am to 7 pm. Of note, his work is also featured in San Miguel de Allende, where, through synergy, we are building bridges of understanding and creation thanks to the successful initiatives of Jane Bauer and the expansion of The Eye magazine.

Huatulco

Preventive Health in Our Community: Small Actions That Make a Big Difference

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By Dalia López

In recent weeks, different neighborhoods across Huatulco have seen something simple but meaningful: tables set up early in the morning, people stopping by out of curiosity, and neighbors encouraging each other to “go check your pressure.” Free blood pressure and glucose screenings were carried out in La Crucecita and Sector U2 in Bahías de Huatulco, and Santa María Huatulco. Most recently, the initiative also reached pilgrims arriving from San José del Alto.

“What may seem like a quick and routine test can actually make a significant difference.” – Karen Palma, CEO of Clinica Hospitalaria San Miguel.

Many people who approached the screening tables mentioned that they had not checked their blood pressure or glucose levels in months, and in some cases, years. Some came because a family member insisted. Others stopped by simply because they were passing through. A few admitted they were nervous about what the numbers might show.

These small interactions highlight an important reality: conditions such as hypertension and diabetes often develop silently. A person can feel completely fine while their blood pressure is elevated or their blood sugar levels are higher than normal. Without regular monitoring, these conditions can progress unnoticed and eventually lead to serious complications.

High blood pressure places constant strain on the heart and blood vessels. Over time, it increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, and kidney problems. The challenge is that it rarely causes obvious symptoms in its early stages. That is why a simple measurement, which takes only a few minutes, can be so valuable.

Glucose testing is equally important. Elevated blood sugar levels may indicate prediabetes or diabetes, conditions that affect thousands of families across the country. When left untreated, high glucose levels can damage blood vessels, nerves, vision, and vital organs. However, when detected early, individuals have the opportunity to make adjustments in diet, physical activity, and medical follow-up that can greatly improve long-term outcomes.

During these recent outreach efforts, some participants were relieved to see normal readings. Others discovered elevated numbers and were advised to seek further evaluation. In both situations, the screenings provided something essential: awareness.

The initiative was carried out by medical personnel from Clínica Hospitalaria San Miguel as part of a broader effort to promote preventive care and community education. Rather than waiting for illness to appear, the focus was on encouraging people to take proactive steps toward their health.

The response from the community was encouraging. In places like La Crucecita and Sector U2, neighbors shared information with each other, and conversations naturally formed around healthy habits—reducing salt and sugar intake, drinking more water in the heat, staying active, and scheduling regular check-ups. Among the pilgrims from San José del Alto, many expressed appreciation for the opportunity to pause and check their health during their journey.

Preventive care does not always require complex technology or long appointments. Sometimes it begins with a simple question: “When was the last time you checked your pressure?” These types of community-based screenings help remove barriers such as time, transportation, or hesitation. They bring health services closer to everyday life.

In regions like ours, where warm weather, busy routines, and changing lifestyles can influence health patterns, regular monitoring becomes even more important. Checking blood pressure and glucose levels should not be reserved for when someone feels unwell. In fact, it is most valuable when a person feels healthy.

The recent screenings across Huatulco serve as a reminder that prevention is a shared responsibility. When communities participate, ask questions, and take a few minutes to know their numbers, they are investing in their future well-being.

Sometimes, the simplest actions—like rolling up a sleeve for a quick measurement—can open the door to better health decisions. And in the long run, those small moments can make a lasting difference.

Huatulco

Chronic Silent Inflammation: The Real Enemy of Modern Aging

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For decades, aging was considered an inevitable process determined exclusively by genetics. Today we know that this vision is incomplete. One of the most decisive factors in the speed at which we age is not visible to the naked eye, does not always generate immediate pain, and is rarely detected in its early stages: chronic silent inflammation.

Unlike acute inflammation — a natural and protective response to injury or infection — chronic low-grade inflammation operates in a constant and subtle way within the body. It is a persistent inflammatory state that can be maintained for years, affecting tissues, metabolic systems, and cellular functions without obvious symptoms until the damage becomes significant.

In physiological terms, it represents prolonged activation of the immune system. Factors such as chronic stress, poor sleep quality, ultra-processed foods, exposure to environmental toxins, and a sedentary lifestyle contribute to keeping the body in a continuous state of alert. This phenomenon has been scientifically associated with cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, insulin resistance, metabolic disorders, autoimmune conditions, and degenerative processes related to aging.

At the cellular level, chronic inflammation directly impacts mitochondrial function. Mitochondria — known as the “power plants” of the cell — are essential for energy production and tissue repair. When exposed to a persistent inflammatory environment, cellular energy efficiency decreases, oxidative stress increases, and tissue wear accelerates. The result may be persistent fatigue, slower recovery, metabolic imbalance, and biological aging that progresses faster than chronological age.

Within integrative medicine, the concept of systemic detoxification does not refer to trends or temporary regimens, but to supporting the body’s natural elimination pathways. The liver, intestines, kidneys, and lymphatic system function in coordination to process and remove metabolic waste and inflammatory byproducts.

When these systems become overloaded — whether by diet, environmental pollutants, or sustained stress — the inflammatory state can become chronic.

Beyond calorie counting, cellular nutrition focuses on the biochemical quality of nutrients. Micronutrients, antioxidants, essential fatty acids, and bioactive compounds play a central role in modulating inflammatory pathways. Regenerative medicine has explored therapeutic strategies aimed at improving cellular communication, reducing oxidative stress, and optimizing tissue repair capacity.

Ozone therapy, when applied under appropriate medical criteria, has been studied for its potential to modulate oxidative stress and stimulate endogenous antioxidant systems. In clinical practice, medical ozone — a controlled mixture of oxygen and ozone — may be administered in specific concentrations through techniques such as autohemotherapy, in which a small sample of the patient’s blood is exposed to ozone and then reintroduced, or through localized applications depending on the condition being treated. The objective is not to “detoxify” in a simplistic sense, but to encourage physiological balance and support the body’s regulatory mechanisms. As with any medical intervention, it should be performed by trained professionals within established safety protocols.

Healthy aging does not depend solely on the absence of disease, but on the preservation of cellular, metabolic, and immune function. Understanding chronic silent inflammation allows us to rethink prevention from a deeper and more personalized perspective. In a world characterized by constant stress and environmental overload, reducing chronic inflammation may be one of the most relevant strategies to extend not only lifespan, but healthspan — the quality of life during those years.

Valentina Arline is an integrative medicine practitioner with international experience in regenerative therapies and inflammatory modulation approaches. Her work focuses on longevity and cellular health strategies from a scientific and holistic perspective.

Huatulco, San Miguel de Allende

A Banner Year for the Novel and Its Master Storytellers

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Since the theme of The Eye this month is healthcare, herein lies a literary path for positive mental health! This is turning out to be a banner year for lovers of the novel. Many of us thought 2025 was a bit bereft of books by creative minds that produce beautiful stories. Now it appears they were being saved for 2026.

Fire up your Kindles and be sure your library card is up to date! Here is a handful of bright gems hailing from around the globe. There will be more to follow in upcoming months, with June appearing to be the biggest month for publication.

Land by Maggie O’Farrell
For me, this is the most exciting selection of the year. If this is your first foray into O’Farrell’s novels, you have many satisfying hours ahead. I’ve been hooked on her books for the past 20 years, ever since I first read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox in 2006.

O’Farrell may be best known for her recent best-selling novel Hamnet, which has been made into a blockbuster movie and nominated for several Academy Awards. O’Farrell was also one of the screenwriters.

Regardless of the film’s success, I found the book much more emotionally satisfying (as happens most of the time for me). Two hours in the theater simply can’t compare to the hours spent in the silent contemplation of the reading process.

Land, due out in June, takes place in Ireland before and after the dreaded 1842-1852 Great Famine, also known as the Irish Potato Famine. It is a story of survival in a land of a million deaths. Another million fled the country. Publication June 2, 2026.

Contrapposto by Dave Eggers
It’s been a while since we’ve had news of a new Dave Eggers novel. He rose to fame in the literary world with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and has since repeatedly proved himself a formidable writer, with a substantial litany of the finest novels of our time including What Is the What, You Shall Know Our Velocity, and The Circle. Eggers has also been published in The New Yorker and Esquire magazines.

Eggers is so much more than a writer. He is also the founder of several literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights non-profit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition.

In this latest novel, about art and its world, we follow the two principal characters, Cricket and Olympia, for 65 years. Publisher Penguin describes it as “a wild and beautiful examination of the rules and market forces of the art world.” But it’s also about the power of friendship.

Eggers is a classically trained artist whose work has been exhibited throughout the world. This novel has been percolating in his mind for the past 20 years. Publication date: June 9. 2026.

John of John by Douglas Stuart
At the start of the Covid epidemic in 2020, Douglas Stuart’s debut novel Shuggie Bain seized our attention, as did his fairytale personal story.

Shuggie is a young boy in 1980s Glasgow, desperately trying to save his alcoholic mother while dealing with his own identity. The knowledge of the author’s personal struggle and ultimate success gave us joy and hope during difficult pandemic times.

In 2022 Stuart published his second novel, Young Mungo, that also received critical acclaim.

Now, Stuart’s third novel, John of John, promises more excellent craftsmanship in a gripping story of a young man returning home.

Award-winning author Colm Toibin raves about this newest from Stuart, saying “it has the emotional reach and empathy of his earlier books, but this book is special; it has an urgency, an immediacy, a brilliant sense of place, the drama of a fierce emotion repressed, hidden, and volcanically exposed.”

Ann Patchett, another venerated writer, also is enraptured: “Reading John of John is like moving to the Isle of Harris and settling into the family farm. The novel is so immersive, so all-encompassing, that I felt as if I were living in it. Douglas Stuart has written something brilliant and exceptional.”

I needn’t read further previews to know that I’ll be the first in line on publication day May 15, 2026.

The News from Dublin by Colm Toibin
Speaking of Colm Toibin, he graces us with a new series of short stories this year. These 11 selections take you across continents and eras. The Miami Herald calls Toibin an “achingly beautiful writer…with infinite compassion.”

If you’re among the many readers familiar with Brooklyn and its sequel Long Island, you may enjoy a change of pace in Toibin’s non-fiction. Travelers and European history fans may enjoy Homage to Barcelona, a book that celebrates one of the great cities of the world, from the vibrant architecture and expansion to the lives of Gaudi, Miró, Picasso, Casals, and Dalí.
Many of you may, like me, be interested in the separation of Catalan, as well a glimpse into Franco and the Civil War.

Toibin’s selection of both fiction and nonfiction will complete your library.

Now I Surrender by Alvaro Enrigue
The luminous re-creator of Montezuma and the Spanish Conquest in his novel You Dreamed of Empires took both sides of US/Mexican border by surprise. It was lauded by the most prestigious reviewers. The Washington Post called it “An alternate history of Mexican conquest, with a Tarantino-ready twist.”

Riding on this success, Enrigue takes on the American/Mexican Wild West in Now I Surrender. It’s an expansive novel of past and present using myth and history to tell the story through imagined characters such as Geronimo and the Apaches.

Publication date: March 3, available in Spanish and English.

Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead
Fans, including yours truly, of Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto are enthusiastically awaiting this third and final novel of the trilogy.

Returning are furniture dealer Ray Carney and his old friend and partner in crime, Pepper, who is a bit of a sociopath. It has now been 20 years since the death of Ray’s cousin Freddie. Ray is feeling a responsibility for Freddie’s son and needs to weigh the risks of rescuing him from the violent forces of the city versus maintaining the safety and security of his own family.

Most readers are familiar with Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize (for fiction) winning The Underground Railroad. The novel also won the National Book Award. Many readers feel this trilogy deserves equal praise.

Whistler by Ann Patchett
“It’s Friday and if you haven’t read this it’s new to you,” says Ann Patchett, introducing her Friday chats on Facebook. Every week she offers several minutes out of her busy literary schedule to discuss the books she’s reading.

You may know Patchett as the owner of the famous Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, with a branch at the Nashville Airport. In addition, she keeps an online magazine. At a site called Musing, you’ll find Ann Patchett’s blog, staff-picked reading lists, exclusive author interviews, shop dog diaries, and more. No matter where you live you can subscribe.

We know Patchett as a reliable storyteller. She has written extraordinary novels loved by a wide range of readers. My personal favorite is Bel Canto, and I’m not alone in my assessment: the New York Times Book Review named it one of the most important books of the 21st century. It also won the PEN/Faulkner Prize and the Orange Prize. “The Shining Path meets the opera star” could be the subtitle.

Now to her new book, Whistler. It concerns a subject we all ponder from time to time: the decisions we’ve made and the ones that have been made for us. Two main characters reunite to formulate and develop the plot and philosophical rendering. Pre-publication reviews are raves. Due out on June 2, 2026.

With so many wondrous novels arriving this year, we dedicate this and future columns to keeping you in the loop.

 

 

Huatulco

From Chalkboards to Starlink: A New Era for Rural Schools in Oaxaca

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By Jamie McIntyre—

Founded in 2008 to assist rural communities near Huatulco, Bacaanda Foundation began to focus its efforts on rural education in 2013. In partnership with CONAFE, the agency responsible for rural education in Oaxaca, the Foundation now supports over 550 children and 63 teachers, in 59 schools across 23 rural communities.

Initially, the Foundation worked to establish suitable classroom environments for students and teachers. With donor funding and community support, it built or renovated 46 schools and 33 teacher residences.

This initiative led to Bacaanda’s “Intelligent Rural Schools Program,” which uses technology to enhance student learning, and along with investments in teacher training these technologies are now being used in all classrooms.

This year, the Foundation completed installation of Starlink satellite systems providing high-speed internet to all 59 schools. With 400 iPads now fully integrated into student learning, we are seeing primary student test scores in Spanish and Math improve, by more than 30% in two years.

A review found significant gaps in student literacy, so the Foundation added a literacy module in 2025, focused on reading, comprehension and writing. Proficiency improved dramatically from 23% of primary students proficient last year, to 63% this year.

Many teachers at Bacaanda schools are recent high school graduates who lack experience and formal pedagogical training. At its two training facilities, the Foundation works collaboratively with CONAFE to deliver teacher training, which has proven to enhance educators’ skill sets, self-assurance, and instructional effectiveness.

Also, Bacaanda’s six trainers provide teacher support both in-class and online, but retaining teachers remains difficult. To address this, Bacaanda, in cooperation with CONAFE, began offering teacher salary support last year. As a result, teacher turnover in 2025/2026 dropped to less than half its previous rate.

Bacaanda Foundation is a registered charity in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. For further details or to learn about tax-efficient ways to give to this wonderful organization, please visit http://www.bacaandafoundation.org