Why a Booktrail?
2011: This is a booktrail by boat and the author is a worthy guide.
The Robber of Memories
What you need to know before your trail
Magdalena is a river that runs through the heart of Columbia – connecting the country’s violent past with its uncertain present and future.
Writer Michael Jacobs is keen to find out more about this river and the country it flows though so he travels by boat and cut off from the outside world and all its distractions.
One man one boat and one heck of an adventure. Not to mention an insight into a fascinating country.
Travel Guide
Note – there is a full and very detailed map of all the locations in the novel at the start of the book and this will take you far and wide in around the country.
Jacob’s journey is a fascinating one not only because of how adventurous and dangerous it is but of the people he meets along the way. Our favourite was the moment he meets Gabriel Garcia Márquez, who of course is a native of the country and so who sheds a new and unique light on the Magadalena of his own youth.
The travelogue is rather like a Márquez novel in a lot of respects – maybe the magical realism really does originate in the jungle here – for there are times such as when he comes face to face with the FARC guerillas and things take on a strange turn.
We admired the poignancy of this travelogue as well for the author goes just as his own mother is suffering from the horrific disease of Alzheimer’s – Colombia at that time apparently had the highest number of people suffering from the first stages of the disease in the world.
Where Next?
