South and Central America
A selection of books on Latin American countries including Central America and Mexico.
A Visit to Don Otavio
Sybille Bedford
Mexico, through the eyes of Sybille Bedford is a country of passion and paradox: arid desert and shrieking jungle, harsh sun and deep shadow, violence and sentimentality. In her frank descriptions of the horrors of travel - through bug-infested jungle, trapped in a broiling stationary train, or in a bus with a dead fish slapping against her face - she gains our trust.
But it is the charmed world of Don Otavio which steals our imagination. He is, she says, "one of the kindest men I ever met". She stays in his crumbling ancestral mansion, living a life of provincial ease and observing with glee the intense life of a Mexican neighbourhood.Eland 1953
ISBN 0907871879
Pbk £12.99
The Savage Detectives
Roberto Bolano
New Year's Eve 1975, Mexico City. Two hunted men leave town in a hurry, on the desert-bound trail of a vanished poet. Spanning two decades and crossing continents, theirs is a remarkable quest through a darkening universe. It is a journey told and shared by a generation of lovers, rebels and readers, whose testimonies are woven together into one of the most dazzling Latin American novels of the twentieth century.
Picador 2007
ISBN 9780330445153
Pbk £8.99
In Patagonia
Bruce Chatwin
Fascinated by Patagonia ever since an early childhood lust for his
Grandma's scrap of hairy Giant Sloth skin, Bruce Chatwin is intrigued
by odd miners, Darwin, the Welsh and the log cabin built by Butch
Cassidy. From Rio Negro to the southernmost town of Ushuaia, Chatwin
depicts all in writing as spare as the Patagonian desert and as vibrant
as the purple clouds off Last Hope Sound.
For more books by Bruce Chatwin, click here.
Vintage 1977, 2006
ISBN 9780099769514
Pbk £7.99
Living to tell the Tale
Gabriel García Márquez
Living to Tell the Tale spans Gabriel García Márquez's life from his birth in Columbia in 1927, through his emerging career as a writer, up to the 1950s and his proposal to the woman who would become his wife. Insightful, daring and beguiling in equal measure, it charts how García Márquez's astonishing early life influenced the man who, more than any other, has been hailed as one of the twentieth century's greatest and most-beloved writers.
Penguin 2004
(Translated from Spanish)
ISBN 0141019425
Pbk £7.99
At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: A Riotous Journey into the Heart of Paraguay
John Gimlette
Arrow 2003
ISBN 0099416557
Pbk £7.99
The Motorcycle Diaries
Ernesto 'Che' Guevara
In 1952, the twenty-three-year-old Che Guevara set out to explore South America with his friend Alberto Granado. These are his diaries - full of disasters and discoveries, high drama and low comedy. During his travels through Argentina, Chile, Peru and Venezuela, Che's main concerns are where the next drink is coming from, where the next bed is to be found and who might be around to share it. Within a decade the whole world would know his name. His trip might have been the adventure of a lifetime - had his lifetime not turned into a much greater adventure.
Harper Perennial 2004
ISBN 0007172338
Pbk £7.99
Gabriel García Márquez - Memories of My Melancholy Whores.
Nick Creagh-Osborne writes:
In just over one hundred pages Márquez gives us a tale of the anguish and transformative power of love told in prose as dense and lush as tropical vegetation. At the time of his ninetieth birthday the narrator falls head over heals in love with his imaginary equivalent of a fourteen year old prostitute. He has only ever known women for whom he has paid and we follow him as he struggles with unfamiliar emotions for which, unlike the angora cat he is given as a birthday present, there is no instruction manual.
A fulfilling read in which every word is exquisitely weighed and balanced so that even the addition of a single sentence would render the whole less complete.
Jonathan Cape 2005
ISBN 0224077643
Hbk £10.00
Robert Whitaker - The Mapmaker's Wife
Nick Creagh-Osborne writes:
In the 1720's, during the peace which followed the end of the Spanish War of Succession, scientific debate raged in
As
Years later, as the expedition draws to a close, its youngest member, Jean Godin, who has married Isabel Grameson, the daughter of a local family, journeys on ahead over the mountains and down the Amazon to find a route to bring his wife back to France. Then, disaster strikes; the borders between French and Spanish territories are closed and Jean is stranded for twenty years in
Eventually Isabel follows him down the Amazon. Her epic journey becomes a horrifying nightmare as she left the only survivor of the expedition, alone and starving to confront the terrors of the jungle.
The book is a fitting memorial to an exceptional woman whose tale of courage and endurance is one of the greatest journeys in all Travel.
Bantam 2005
ISBN 0553815393
Pbk £7.99
Havana
Robert Polidori
Robert Polidori, often considered an architectural photographer, is in fact a photographer of habitat. On the surface his subjects are buildings, but at the core his lens is focused on the remnants and traces of living he finds scattered in hallways, left in back rooms and worn on facades. Havana is a particularly rich setting for Polidori's inquiries. The curves and columns that line the streets refer to past eras and speak of the political, social and economic forces that have driven the city to its present condition. Through his rigorous and sensitive examination - facilitated by a sense of color and composition that makes his photographs feel like vivid memories - Polidori delicately peels away the patina of daily living and reveals the juxtapositions that create a city's identity. In this city the peddler lives where the countess once resided; children dance and tumble where merchants conducted their business. Each photograph is a discovery and a fragment of the city's biography.
Steidl Verlag 2001
ISBN 3882433337
Hbk £48.00
White Woman on a Green Bicycle
Monique Roffey
When George and Sabine Harwood arrive in Trinidad from England George
instantly takes to their new life, but Sabine feels isolated,
heat-fatigued, and ill at ease with the racial segregation and the
imminent dawning of a new era. Her only solace is her growing fixation
with Eric Williams, the charismatic leader of Trinidad's new national
party, to whom she pours out all her hopes and fears for the future in
letters that she never brings herself to send. As the years progress,
George and Sabine's marriage endures for better or worse. When George
discovers Sabine's cache of letters, he realises just how many secrets
she's kept from him - and he from her - over the decades. And he is
seized by an urgent, desperate need to prove his love for her, with
tragic consequences...
The latest novel from talented writer Monique Roffey.
Simon & Schuster 2009
(Signed Copies Available)
ISBN 1847375006
Pbk £12.99
Galapagos: The Islands that Changed the World
Paul D. Stewart
For travel truly off the beaten track, the Galapagos Islands are the perfect destination. This beautifully illustrated account of the islands' journey through time highlights the islands geological, biological and human stories.
BBC Books 2006
ISBN 9780563493563
Pbk £18.99
