Kidnapped to the Underworld Volume 95

Vctor Montejos story recounts the near-death experience of his grandfather, Antonyo Mekel Lawuxh (Antonio Esteban), who fell gravely ill in Guatemala in the late 1920s but survived to tell his family and community what he had witnessed of the afterlife. Narrated from Antonios perspective, the reader follows along on a journey to the Maya underworld of Xibalba, accompanied by two spirit guides. Antonio traverses Xibalbas levels of heaven and hell, encountering instructive scenes of punishment and reward: in one chapter, conquistadors are perpetually submerged in a pool of their victims blood; in another, the souls of animal abusers are forever unable to cross a crocodile-infested river. Infused with memory, the author illustrates Guatemalas unique religious syncretism, exploring conceptions of heaven and hell shared between Catholicism and Indigenous Maya spirituality. In the tradition of both the Popol Vuh and the Divine Comedy, Montejos narrative challenges easy categorizationthis is a work of family history, religious testimony, political allegory, and sacred literature.