Novel
The Snow of the Admiral
La nieve del Almirante
Álvaro Mutis · 1986
Synopsis
Maqroll el Gaviero goes up the Xurandó on a motor barge, with a captain who drinks, an Indian mechanic and a woman. He is heading for mountain sawmills where he has been told that timber is bought, and the journey lasts longer than planned: breakdowns, soldiers, rain, fever. He keeps a journal, noting what he sees and what he remembers, and already knows that the venture is worthless. He still keeps going up the river.
Context
The character had existed for forty years in the poems of his author; this book is the first of the seven novels he will devote to him, all written after he turned sixty. The rivers, camps and companies one passes through in it come from the twenty-three years spent travelling all over Latin America for oil and film companies. The novel presents itself as a notebook found in a secondhand volume, a device that allows the author to comment on his own character without judging him.
Who it is for
A short novel, translated into French, written in the form of a diary. The seven narratives of Maqroll can be read in any order.
Prizes and reception
Prix Médicis étranger in 1989 for its French translation, and translated into some twenty languages.