Quiroga is one of those writers who, if Disney ever get hold of him, will make a fortune for his descendants. His life was turbulent, so I have no idea if he has descendants. Perhaps, like him, they ended up lost in the jungle, struggling to get by. In which regard he would appear to be a quintessentially Latin American author, making him a highly atypical Uruguayan one. (Uruguay has its doubts regarding whether it’s part of Latin America or not.) The stories in this volume, which Claudia tells me all Uruguayan children grow up with, relate episodes from this jungle, and are just as exotic to a Montevidean as it would be to a Londoner. Stories of the flux and interaction between man and nature. Crocodiles that fight with warships, turtles which rescue explorers, giant rays which fight panthers to save a man who stopped people dynamiting the river. In this regard the stories are both elemental in their simplicity, and sophisticated in their complex understanding of the interdependence of mankind and the natural world. An understanding which was in short supply when Quiroga wrote, at the onset of the industrial age, and still in short supply today.
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