Victor Haim Perera (1934 – 14 June 2003) was an author and journalist primarily concerned with

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

and Sephardic Jewry. He was best known for his history of the Sephardic Jews, ''The Cross and The Pear Tree'' (1995), which traced the path of his own family from 15th-century Spain to 20th-century Guatemala.

Personal life

Perera was born in Guatemala to Sephardic Jewish parents. After the end of the Second World War, the family left an increasingly dangerous Guatemala for Brooklyn, New York. Perera studied at Brooklyn College, and went on to study English at the University of Michigan. There he met, and in 1960 married, Padma Hejmadi, an Indian writer/artist and Hindu. The marriage, which caused a rift in his family, broke down in 1972, and Perera moved to California. In his writing, he expressed his belief that his family was suffering under a curse for leaving Palestine two generations earlier. After retiring, he co-founded Sephardic/Mizrahi Artists and Writers International, which sponsors the Sephardic arts. In 1998 Perera suffered a severe stroke while swimming, and was largely forced to give up his writing. He had been working on a book about

whales Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

Writing career

Perera's first job was as a fact-checker at ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''. Working as a journalist, he also taught journalism for 20 years at the University of California's campuses at Santa Cruz and Berkeley. His numerous articles and essays were published by, among others, ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', '' Harper's'', ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

'', ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'', and ''The New Yorker''. His writing included ethnographic work as well. With the anthropologist Robert D. Bruce, he wrote ''Last Lords of Palenque'' (1982), a first-hand account of life among the Lacandon Indians. In ''Unfinished Conquest: The Guatemalan Tragedy'' (1993), he collected oral accounts of the lives of modern

Mayans The Maya peoples () are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical reg ...

, and of the murders of many of them by the country's army. These books helped enhance his reputation as a voice for the oppressed.

Works

* ''The Conversion'' (1970), a novel *''The Loch Ness Monster watchers: an essay by Victor Perera'' (1974) * ''Last Lords of Palenque'' (1982), an ethnographic study co-written by Robert Bruce * ''Rites'' (1986), a memoir, republished in a new edition by Eland in 2011 * ''Unfinished Conquest: The Guatemalan Tragedy'' (1993), a history of Mayan persecution * ''The Cross and The Pear Tree'' (1995), a family history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perera, Victor Jewish American writers Guatemalan emigrants to the United States 1934 births 2003 deaths 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century Guatemalan writers 21st-century Guatemalan writers Guatemalan male writers 20th-century male writers University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni Brooklyn College alumni Writers from Brooklyn Male non-fiction writers 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American male writers