_When the Owl Cries_ has been described by reviewers as "The _Gone with the Wind_ of Mexico." It is a gripping, vivid story that takes place on a huge estate, an hacienda, at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The novel centers about the life of Don Raul Medina, soon to take over the management of the hacienda from his father, Fernando, who is now dying. Fernando has been a cruel _hacendado_, ruling with an iron hand, whip, and gun. Raul is caught in a complex web: his estrangement from his emotionally frail and disturbed wife, his love for the young blonde Lucienne, _hacendada_ of a neighboring estate, and the turmoil and hardships they are plunged into during the Revolution. The colorful, descriptive panorama of the novel leads the reader into a first-hand experience as hacienda life came to an end as a result of the Revolution. _When the Owl Cries_ was originally published in 1960 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Mexican Revolution and was an immediate success. The book was listed by the _New York Times Book Review_ in its Best-seller/Recommended column for 13 continuous weeks after its release. The novel received rave reviews across the country. Excerpts of a few of these reviews appear later in this introduction. Readers may be interested in some personal background about the author and where _When the Owl Cries_ was written. Paul Alexander Bartlett (1909-1990) was a fine artist and the author of numerous short stories, novels, and non-fiction works. He came to Mexico during WWII and developed a life-long interest in visiting haciendas throughout the country in order to make the first large-scale artistic and photographic record of these ancient, fascinating, but rapidly vanishing places. His interest was inspired by the realization that most of these old estates were rapidly crumbling and disappearing after the ravages of the Mexican Revolution had left them in ruins, and from the neglect that followed the Revolution as Mexican peasants dismantled many of the hacienda buildings for use as building materials. From the mid-1940s until late in the 1980s, Bartlett visited more than 350 haciendas throughout Mexico. Many were remote and difficult to find and then to visit. He, and often with me as his young _compañero_, traveled by horseback, by car, boat, motorcycle, or on foot to visit these old estates. Some were completely abandoned, the roofs of the buildings having caved in, with gaping holes in their walls and trees growing up through their unsheltered floors. Some, in ramshackle condition, were still being lived in by poor Mexican families. Very rarely a select few were occupied or maintained in absentia by the descendants of their original owners, while a small number of the estimated original 8,000 haciendas have been converted into tourist hotels, schools, and government buildings.