William Ospina

This is the book where Ospina really nails his evocative and poetic style to a momentous story that nevers lets go. The madness of Pizarro, the travails of Orellana, the amazement of travelling through the Amazon for weeks on end, are all captured in beautiful language. While the style is wonderful, this does not mean that the book is a rose-tinted lens on the Spanish blood-lust for wealth. Their violence is fully exposed, but the text also feels like a genuine account from the time, not a show more modern re-imagining with hindsight. A great read that I marvelled at during our own travels in Colombia. show less

Densely floral style of writing, genuinely poetic but the flights of language becomes repetitive in its depictions of endless arrows, dappled forests and mudbound treks through the Colombian hinterlands in the early days of Spanish conquest and colonialism. It is an interesting tale of a lesser-known Spanish adventurer called Ursua, who like others in the era ruthessly sought out adventure and fortune at the expense of the indigenous people. Also a good test of spanish!

The third book that brings to an end the story of Ursua; it tells of his sudden love for a beautiful mestiza heiress and the folly that led him to undertake a new expedition to seek out lost cities of gold in the Amazon, accompanied by the maniac Lope de Aguirre and other desperate characters. Compelling stuff, but the central relationship feels surprisingly under-formed and the tale never develops the resonance and momentum of El Pais de la Canela.

Este libro me parecio sumamente interesante porque nos muestra la realidad colombiana tal cual es, además nos hace un recorrido histórico del país atravesando desde la época de la conquista hasta nuestros días. Gracias a esto podemos reflexionar sobre nuestra sitaución actual y tomar ciertas medidas para mejor el rumbo de Colombia.