The Account: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Relación

The Account: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Relación, edited and translated by José Fernández and Martin Favata, is a new and improved translation of Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s chronicle of his amazing journey across a large portion of what is now the United States.

The Account is one of the earliest chronicles of Spanish penetration into North America. His journey (1528-1536) of hardship and misfortune is one of the most remarkable in the history of the New World and contains many first descriptions of the lands and their inhabitants. The Account, first published in Zamora, Spain, in 1542, is of inestimable value for students of history and literature, ethnographers, anthropologists and the general reader. It is also one of the most remarkable literary documents for the style, clarity and sense of drama in the narrator’s extraordinary effort to comprehend a totally new and marvelous world.