How long does it take to read Song of the Hummingbird?
Graciela Limón
Song of the Hummingbird by Graciela Limón takes about 3 hours 59 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 59 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1996. 217 pages, about 59,675 words.
8 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 6 hours 38 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 59 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 29 minutes |
The page count is the median across 3 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Father Benito questions the forces that brought him to Huitzitzilin. She seems intent on chronicling her life. And hers is a tale that both intrigues and repels him. Distracted from his mission to confess and absolve Huitzitzilin, the priest presses her to tell her compelling story. He has heard the tales of the conquest: the accounts of atrocities, of barbarism, of despair suffered by the conquistadors in the quest for glory. Huitzitzilin speaks of the same death and destruction, but in her tale the roles are reversed. The natives are the victims. . Her words are a revelation. The priest accepts Huitzitzilin's account because she was a witness to the events he learned of only second hand. As he listens to the song of Hummingbird, the priest beings to question his firmly-held convictions. Against his will, he is imbued with unexpected empathy for Hummingbird and all the Mexica people. A novel idea take hold of his consciousness: he begins to share Huitzitzilin's nostalgia for what is irrevocably gone.
Subjects: Indians of Mexico, History, First contact with Europeans, Fiction, Aztecs, Indian women
