With Amazonia, the seventh book of the Abracadabra project, Patrick Deville invites us to a splendidly colorful literary carnival, taking us on a journey up the Amazon from Belém on the Atlantic to Santa Elena on the Pacific, a trip across the Latin American subcontinent, including a crossing of the Andes. With Deville, we discover Santarém, the Río Negro, Manaus, Iquitos, Guayaquil, and finally the Galápagos Islands, a true haven of peace in a world that has once again gone mad, fervently stoking the flames of its own destruction.

The novel delves deep into the past, tracing back to the first European conquistadors who ventured into an unknown world full of legends and surprises in search of gold and riches: Eldorado. Later explorers mapped these uncharted lands, this labyrinth of rivers and tributaries. Adventurers and industrialists exploited the land, with rubber, coffee, and more making fortunes and then going bankrupt, the world a frenzy. In this vibrant landscape, this overflowing nature, excessive in every way, many destinies were decided. Familiar adventurers, gamblers, and those driven by madness take the stage: Lope de Aguirre, the wrath of God; Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, known as Fitzcarraldo; Simón Bolívar; Alexander Humboldt; Charles Darwin.

This time, Deville travels with his son Pierre, adding a father-son story that has always intrigued Deville: Malcolm Lowry and his father, Jonas Savimbi and his father, Kipling and his son. The journey through the history and geography of the Amazon provides the French novelist ample opportunity to describe the environmental devastation as it presents itself to today’s traveler, and consequently to point out the catastrophic consequences for the climate and our future.