W. Lee Slaight novel ties Maya survival to the fate of Mexico’s rainforest

W. Lee Slaight’s historical novel Jaguar on the Mountain connects the survival of the Lacandona Maya with the fate of Mexico’s Chiapas rainforest, using a story set across 1975, 1990 and 2025. The book frames environmental destruction, cultural loss and colonial violence as linked threats, and it is available now ahead of a planned 2027 sequel.

Why it matters: - The book links rainforest preservation to the survival of Indigenous culture, framing both as inseparable. - The story uses the Lacandona Maya and the Chiapas jungle to explore how environmental damage and cultural erasure reinforce each other. - The novel positions historical fiction as a way to make complex issues about colonization, extinction and knowledge loss more accessible to general readers.

What happened: - W. Lee Slaight published Jaguar on the Mountain: A Story of Gertrude Duby Blom and the Last of the Lacandona Maya. - The novel is set in Mexico and moves across 1975, 1990 and 2025. - The story follows Gertrude Duby Blom, a former World War II resistance fighter and environmentalist, as she works to protect the Lacandona Maya and draw attention to jungle burning. - The book is available now.

The details: - In the 1975 sections, Gertrude Duby Blom and Chief Chan K'in Viejo warn that the loss of the last large trees could bring disaster. - The narrative ties their warnings to decades of exploitation, colonization, forest destruction and cultural erasure. - The book presents the rainforest as more than an expedition setting. It is also the land where the Lacandona Maya teach children creation stories and medicinal knowledge. - The story connects environmental damage and modernization with the loss of crop and forest management practices passed between generations. - The book explores extinction through power conflicts, settler violence, invasion and empire-building. - It references the Spanish Conquest, which lasted three centuries before the last Maya kingdoms were destroyed. - The book covers great Maya sites, expert discoveries, cosmology and historical and prehistoric upheaval preserved in Maya codices. - Slaight says the book is meant to help students, book clubs and general readers engage with archaeology and broader Maya cultural history.

Between the lines: - The book uses historical fiction to argue that ecological collapse and cultural collapse are not separate stories. - The framing suggests the Maya past is not just archaeological history. It is a lens for understanding modern conflicts over land, power and survival. - The author’s personal connection to Gertrude Duby Blom adds a memoir-like layer to the project, even as the work remains fiction. - Reviewers have described the book as a meditation on preservation, historical recovery and a defense of Indigenous humanity.

What's next: - The sequel, The Missing Masterworks of the Maya — A Story of the Stolen Codices, is due out in 2027. - The next book will follow Lacandona children returning to Chiapas to reconnect with their roots, search for an old map and look for codices lost in ruins. - Both books will be displayed at the AWP Writers Conference in Chicago, March 17–20, 2027. - Slaight will appear there with KM Cookie, Cheryl Noralez-Figueroa and Mesha McGregor for “Caribbean and Maya Stories Come Alive.” - The author also plans advance Zoom sessions for people interested in a trip to Na Bolom. - More information is available on the author’s announcement page.

The bottom line: - Jaguar on the Mountain uses a Maya-centered historical story to argue that saving forests and preserving culture are part of the same fight.