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Magdalena

By: Wade Davis
Narrated by: Wade Davis, Xandra Uribe
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

A captivating book – from the winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Into the Silence – that illuminates Colombia's complex past, present, and future through the story of the great Río Magdalena.

Travellers often become enchanted with the first country that captures their hearts and gives them license to be free. For Wade Davis, it was Colombia. In this masterful new book, he revisits the mighty Magdalena, the river that made possible the nation. Along the way, he finds a people who have overcome years of conflict precisely because of their character, informed by an enduring spirit of place, and a deep love of a land that is home to the greatest ecological and geographical diversity on the planet.

Only in Colombia can a traveller wash ashore in a coastal desert, follow waterways through wetlands as wide as the sky, ascend narrow tracks through dense tropical forests, and reach verdant Andean valleys rising to soaring ice-clad summits.

Both a corridor of commerce and a fountain of culture, the wellspring of Colombian music, literature, poetry and prayer, the Magdalena has served in dark times as the graveyard of the nation. And yet, always, it returns as a river of life. At once an absorbing adventure and an inspiring tale of hope and redemption, Magdalena gives us a rare, kaleidoscopic picture of a nation on the verge of a new period of peace.

Braiding together memoir, history, and journalism, Wade Davis tells the story of the country's most magnificent river, and in doing so, tells the epic story of Colombia.

©2020 Wade Davis (P)2020 Penguin Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
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Critic reviews

Anyone who wishes to understand this mysterious corner of the world deserves Magdalena. It is a capacious, generous and illuminating book (Juan Gabriel Vásquez)

After all our agonies, Wade Davis, through the evocative power of his writing and the clarity of his understanding, gives us all reason to once again love Colombia. That is the wonder of his book, which in many ways reads as a love letter to a nation (Héctor Abad, author of Oblivion)
Shimmering... Never wincing from dark histories, yet never abandoning hope, Wade Davis shows us why Colombia stole his heart as a young traveller and holds it still (Kate Harris, author of Lands of Lost Borders)

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This is a masterpiece

It is difficult to know how to describe or appreciate this extraordinary book. Basically a collection of narratives woven around the river Magdalena, the principal river of Columbia, with wonderful and horrendous descriptions of its natural marvels and is ecological ruin, about its people and their wonderful and sometimes dire fate. It talks of simplicity, brilliance, incredible creativity, vast knowledge wonderful artistry great leadership and huge human flaws. The narrative is compelling and its beauty sometimes takes your breath away. At others it is unimaginably grim. But through everything the river flows on often offering glimpses of hope not only for the country through which it flows and for its people but also for the world as a whole. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

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Sublime.A must-read for every human in this planet

A moving story recounting the history of Colombia from the time where the natives populated the land (until recent times) with the Magdalena, one of the most important rivers in the Americas, as its witness. A wake up call for the world and the importance of the waters for the identity and survival of people. Can't wait for the spanish version to be available.

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