Cervantes Institute is organising a talk on the book entitled ‘Patria: The Lost Countries of South America’ with writer Laurence Blair and cultural journalist and writer Alice Albina.
Patria reveals an alternative history of South America, spanning thousands of kilometres and five centuries to the present day. Looking beyond modern borders, Laurence Blair takes as his reference point nine countries that do not appear on the map: vanished kingdoms, half-imagined utopias and dismembered homelands. He travels to each of them—on foot and on horseback, by train and by river—to trace their rise, their fall, and their unexpected aftermath.
Blair goes in search of ancient Amazonian civilisations, a rebellious Inca dynasty in the jungle, and the Patagonian power that defeated imperial Spain. His journey takes him from a Peruvian maritime kingdom that grew rich on bird droppings to a fearsome nation of fugitives who defied slavery in Brazil and an insurgent desert confederation that fell fighting an Andalusian swindler. Meet the landlocked Bolivian navy, the African freedom fighters who crossed the Andes to liberate the hemisphere, and the Napoleon of the New World who led Paraguay to ruin.
Patria incorporates recent cutting-edge studies, surprising archaeological discoveries, and vivid eyewitness accounts—including encounters with drug lords, indigenous leaders, refugees bound for the United States, and former guerrilla fighters—to weave an epic tale of survival, resistance, and revolution. This is the story of South America as it has rarely been told: at the epicentre of global history and the forging of the modern world.
