The Villagers is a story of the ruthless exploitation and extermination of an Indian village of Ecuador by its greedy landlord. First published in 1934, it is here available for the first time in an authorized English translation. A realistic tale in the best tradition of the novels of social protest of Zola, Dosto­evsky, José Eustasio Rivera, and the Mexican novels of the Revolution, The Villagers (Huasipungo) shocked and horrified its readers, and brought its author mingled censure and acclaim, when it was first published in 1934. Deeply moving in the dramatic intensity of its relentless evolution and stark human suffering, Icaza’ s novel has been translated into eleven foreign languages, including Russian and Chinese, and has gone through numerous editions in Spanish, including a revised and enlarged edition in 1953, on which this translation is based, but it has never before been authorized for translation into English. His first novel, but not his first published work, The