Reading Challenge Stop Two: South America
The next stop on our continental reading challenge is South America. Over the next two months, we will be travelling the countries of South America through both fiction and cooking. South America is mostly situated in the western and southern hemisphere. As of 2018, South America had a population of roughly four hundred and twenty-three million. This continent is made up of 12 sovereign states, some of which include: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. It also includes many of the surrounding islands such as: The ABC Islands, Trinidad and Tobago and The Galapagos Islands. South America is seventeen million, eight hundred and forty thousand kilometres square and it’s time zones spread from UTC-2 to UTC-5.
Due to a long history of colonialism, the vast majority of the continent speak either Spanish or Portuguese. South American culture is massively influenced by their European conquerors and the immigrants that followed. Also due to the Trans Atlantic slave trade, much of Latin America is influenced by African culture.
Below is just a small selection of the books set in South America:
French Guiana: Papillon by Henri Charrière
Henri Charrière, called “Papillon,” for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, he became obsessed with one goal: escape. After planning and executing a series of treacherous yet failed attempts over many years, he was eventually sent to the notorious prison, Devil’s Island, a place from which no one had ever escaped . . . until Papillon. His flight to freedom remains one of the most incredible feats of human cunning, will, and endurance ever undertaken.
Bolivia: Marching Powder by Rusty Young
Thomas found himself in a bizarre world, the prison reflecting all that is wrong with South American society. Prisoners have to pay an entrance fee and buy their own cells (the alternative is to sleep outside and die of exposure), prisoners’ wives and children often live inside too, high-quality cocaine is manufactured and sold from the prison. Thomas ended up making a living by giving backpackers tours of the prison – he became a fixture on the backpacking circuit and was named in the Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia. When he was told that for a bribe of $5000 his sentence could be overturned, it was the many backpackers who’d passed through who sent him the money.
Chile: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Here is patriarch Esteban, whose wild desires and political machinations are tempered only by his love for his ethereal wife, Clara, a woman touched by an otherworldly hand. Their daughter, Blanca, whose forbidden love for a man Esteban has deemed unworthy infuriates her father, yet will produce his greatest joy: his granddaughter Alba, a beautiful, ambitious girl who will lead the family and their country into a revolutionary future.
Colombia: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The story of seven generations of the Buendia family and of Macondo, the town they have built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendia can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.
Ecuador: The Sisters of Alameda Street by Lorena Hughes
When Malena Sevilla’s tidy, carefully planned world collapses following her father’s mysterious suicide, she finds a letter—signed with an “A”—which reveals that her mother is very much alive and living in San Isidro, a quaint town tucked in the Andes Mountains. Intent on meeting her, Malena arrives at Alameda Street and meets four sisters who couldn’t be more different from one another, but who share one thing in common: all of their names begin with an A.
Argentina: The Disappeared by Gloria Whelan
The Disappeared. Los Desaparecidos. This is the name given to those who opposed Argentina’s dictatorial government and were kidnapped to ensure their silence. With her hometown of Buenos Aires ensconced in the political nightmare, Silvia devises a plan to save her missing brother. She’ll make Norberto, son of the general who arrests dissenters, fall in love with her, and he’ll have his father set Eduardo free.
Bolivia: Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez
A lush tapestry of magic, romance, and revolución, drawing inspiration from Bolivian politics and history. Ximena is the decoy Condesa, a stand-in for the last remaining Illustrian royal. Her people lost everything when the usurper, Atoc, used an ancient relic to summon ghosts and drive the Illustrians from La Ciudad. Now Ximena’s motivated by her insatiable thirst for revenge, and her rare ability to spin thread from moonlight.
Brazil: The Lost City of Z by David Grann
In 1925, Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history. For centuries Europeans believed the world’s largest jungle concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humans.
