Zapata Is Here!

The whole village was running, crying, ＂It’s Zapata! Zapata is here!＂

Timoteo has always known injustice. His family’s land stolen, his beloved animals imprisoned, his people forced into servitude. But when the revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata rides into his village, Timoteo dares to believe that change is possible.

Based on firsthand research and rich historical detail, Zapata Is Here! brings to life the passion and struggle of the Mexican Revolution. From secret newspapers to daring escapes, from ancestral wisdom to modern resistance, this powerful novel of historical fiction for young adults tells the story of a people who refused to be silenced.

Published more than 60 years after its creation, this first edition includes a foreword by Meridel’s grandson, David Tilsen, providing insight into the novel’s history and its profound relevance today. This long-awaited publication of Zapata Is Here! revives LeSueur’s powerful storytelling and ensures her vision endures for new generations of readers.

＂Again and again, I was inspired by Meridel’s belief in the power of the written word...being passed person to person, held and hidden by the people in the recesses of their clothing, next to their skin, planted, germinating fervor, vitality and affirmation for the Revolution.＂ - Sandy Spieler, Artist

Meridel LeSueur (1900-1996) was one of the great women literary voices of the twentieth century. She described her own roots as springing from ＂preachers, abolitionists, agrarians, radical lawyers on the Lincoln, Illinois, circuit. Dissenters and democrats and radicals through five generations.＂ Her writings were grounded in these stories of working people, the poor, the disenfranchised, the dispossessed. She captures history as a living, moving entity in our lives.