“Islands of Abandonment” by Cal Flyn. Fjord. 345 pgs. $5,800
The “islands of abandonment” They are the places on the planet where the human presence has disappeared. Poisoned forests, mined territories as a result of a war, spaces that radiation made uninhabitable, forgotten fields because a political change transformed the way of production in them.
Scottish journalist Cal Flyn travel through these islands, all over the world, to discover an amazing secret: life has returned with more force than before to these territories devastated by the action of men. “The absence of people, surprisingly, proves to be more beneficial to the environment than how harmful pollution or minefields can be,” says Flyn in the prologue to “Islands of Abandonment. Life in Post-Human Landscapes”, a volume honored by the Washington Post and the Sunday Times, among other awards.
Halfway between a travel book and a treatise on scientific dissemination, the book recounts in each destination that arrives –Chernobyl, Cyprus, Estonia, Michigan, Scotland– a story that leads to the destruction of an ecosystem and then, to the astonishing recovery of native flora and fauna or directly, to the appearance of new species for that environment.
The absence of the human factor is the common characteristic of these strange paradises in which nature, in Flyn’s words, rather than “recover”, “finds the confidence to be present”.
In some cases, that of Estonia, for example, the abandonment of Soviet community farms due to migration to the cities, was the initial kick in a process of land transformation, which covered a large percentage of the country’s surface with forests. This fact, which is repeated in other parts of the world by similar processes, is essential to reduce the carbon footprint that does so much damage to the Earth.
For readers accustomed to consuming scientific information on ecosystems and climate change, this volume may not provide new or surprising content. But what is interesting about this text, both for laymen and for initiates, is Flyn’s journalistic approach, which links the political or economic history of a territory with an ecological disaster and the way in which that destiny is reversed.
Poetic and entertaining, “Islands of Abandonment” aims to be a “redemption story”, a more hopeful look at the health of the planet that shows us that we still have time to change, in part, the end of history.
The Recommended
“The patience of water on each stone” by Alejandra Kamiya. Eternal cadence. 128 pages. $3,800.
A multi-award winning short story writer, Alejandra Kamiya’s writing is unlike anything we’ve read before. Each story detaches itself from everyday reality, towards a new world built by language. Animals are part of that world and also characters who don’t know why they got there. “She was woken up by the noise that she had already ceased to be, a car that had passed or not and was going through the real night or again”, thus begins the story “El baño”, for example. The stories are very brief, what is narrated is small, almost imperceptible; but poetry makes them unforgettable.
News
“Roads of extinction” by Ana López. Mandrake. 78 pgs. $2,800.
The creation of a new publishing label is always applauded. This is the case of Mandrágora, which is also a bookstore and is now publishing its own material. In this case, the novel is the work of another bookseller, Ana López, who is in charge of “Suerte maldita.” This short story begins with the worst tragedy and from it emerges other stories and reflections, to return, like a melody; on the main theme: love and death.
“The Unknown” by Rosa Montero and Olivier Truc. Alfaguara. 158 pgs. $3,999.
The “featuring” reached the literature and gives very good results. In this case it is not known if the star is Rosa Montero or Olivier Truc who, like Rosa, comes from journalism but has turned to literature to write detective novels. Like the writers, two detectives from Spain and France will have the task of investigating the causes of the crime and, incidentally, confronting their national and investigative styles. A excellent entertainment.
The most read
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2- “Happiness fits in a cup of coffee”
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3-“The secret of Compostela”
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4-“Misery”
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5- “The unknown”
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Non-fiction
1-“The knot”
Carlos Pagni
2-“La Gioconda and Leonardo”
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3-“The power of words”
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4-“Man in search of meaning”
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5-
“Third”
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Source: Yenny and El Ateneo bookstores.
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