 |
- Non fiction - |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Bone and Dream: Into the World's Driest Desert |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Bone and Dream: Into the World's Driest DesertBy Lake Sagaris Random House Canada ISBN 0676972233 376 pages, 2000 [Includes Index and Annotated Bibliography] Reviewed by Marion E. Cason Bone and Dream is a journey through time, history and travel. Sagaris takes us to the Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest desert in the world that yet rises out of the Pacific Ocean, stretching across Chile to the Andes Mountains. The desert is not sand but stone and salt, with cliffs and ravines chiseled into the landscape by a flash flood thousands of years ago. Seeds lie dormant beneath the surface of the desert. When the fog and mist from the ocean blow across the desert, they leave enough moisture for those seeds to briefly spring to life. Sagaris travels to the desert to see if she can find out what happened to Huillac Nusta, daughter of the great Incan pope, Huillac Urna, who lived during the early 16th century. She describes the silence of the desert and when the wind blows, she hears the ghosts of the Atacamans and Incans. Nusta's ghost whispers her story to Sagaris and tells her about their enforced march with the Spaniards to the fertile lands in the South of Chile. Sagaris travels the same route, stopping to view the remnants of battles - mummified bodies well preserved after all these centuries. As the author follows Nusta's journey, and with historical events woven throughout, her travels show how Nusta escaped the Spaniards and what happened to her. Sagaris brings into play the history of the copper mines and how investments by foreign countries rob the desert and Chile of its natural resources, then and now. Canadian author Sagaris is a poet, writer, translator and journalist living in Chile since 1981. She translated many documents to give us this rich history and travelogue of Chile. Her writing is descriptive and fluid - a pleasure to peruse - bringing to life the ancient societies of the Atacamans and Incans with dignity and sensitivity. I enjoyed this travel back through history in a country I knew little about. Sagaris hooked me when she compared the crunching sound her feet made on the desert to that of walking on snow in Canada. Bone and Dream is well written, informative and entertaining. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||