Every Day the River Changes
Four Weeks Down the Magdalena
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
An exhilarating travelogue for a new generation about a journey along Colombia’s Magdalena River, exploring life by the banks of a majestic river now at risk, and how a country recovers from conflict.
An American writer of Argentine, Syrian, and Iraqi Jewish descent, Jordan Salama tells the story of the Río Magdalena, nearly one thousand miles long, the heart of Colombia. This is Gabriel García Márquez’s territory—rumor has it Macondo was partly inspired by the port town of Mompox—as much as that of the Middle Eastern immigrants who run fabric stores by its banks.
Following the river from its source high in the Andes to its mouth on the Caribbean coast, journeying by boat, bus, and improvised motobalinera, Salama writes against stereotype and toward the rich lives of those he meets. Among them are a canoe builder, biologists who study invasive hippopotamuses, a Queens transplant managing a failing hotel, a jeweler practicing the art of silver filigree, and a traveling librarian whose donkeys, Alfa and Beto, haul books to rural children. Joy, mourning, and humor come together in this astonishing debut, about a country too often seen as only a site of war, and a tale of lively adventure following a legendary river.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Salama debuts with a mesmerizing travelogue spanning four weeks on different stretches of Colombia's Magdalena River. When Salama first traveled to Colombia as a college freshman in 2016, he was frequently told the Magdalena—which flows through the heart of the country, from the Andes Mountains to the Caribbean Sea—was "a place you must not miss." So in 2018, as part of his senior thesis for Princeton University, Salama set out to tour the 950 miles of river—traversing "mountains, jungles, plains, and swamplands"—in an effort to capture its complicated history. Among the memorable experiences he depicts is staying at one of "Colombia's grandest hotels" the night before it permanently closed, embarking on a hunt for invasive hippos with local biologists, and befriending a former schoolteacher who delivers books, via donkey, to local children. Through keen reporting, he unpacks how "the ever-shifting fortunes of the Colombian people have long mirrored the rise and fall of their country's greatest river"—from the river's booming "golden age" in the 1940s to its ecological ruin and the violence of guerrilla war that plagued subsequent decades. Both complex and achingly beautiful, this outstanding account brims with humanity.
