Spanning the years of civil war in Guatemala, Unfinished Conquest portrays an embattled country facing the third cycle of a conquest that began when the conquistadors arrived in the sixteenth century. As personal narrative weaves with reportage and oral testimony, we meet the victims, champions, and villains of a society torn apart by violence and injustice.

Victor Perera (1934-2003) was novelist and writer whose books include Rites: A Guatemalan Boyhood (1985) and The Last Lords of Palenque (California, 1986).

"Now comes Victor Perera, Guatemalan-born intellectual, to give us, more in sorrow than anger, a lucid account that upsets expectations of what [the civil war] period has done to his country. Sixty thousand dead, a million refugees—that's only the beginning."—Joanne Omang, Washington Post

"A highly readable, richly impressionistic picture of the violence and its causes."—Peter Canby, The Nation

"Perera finds that military terrorism has outlasted the Communist threat; murder and massacre have become the reflexive response to any disagreement, public or private."—The New Yorker

"By telling the stories of real people, Mayas who cling to their traditional gods, their communal ways and their brilliant woven clothing, Perera has selected the most effective means of conveying the astonishing resilience of Mayan culture.—Linda Robinson, New York Times Book Review