The Mountain that Eats Men

Ander Izagirre author Tim Gutteridge translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:15th Apr '19

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Mountain that Eats Men cover

The haunting story of Cerro Rico, a centuries old mining mountain on the verge of collapse.

From the 16th century, the mines of Potosí, perched high in the Andes, bankrolled the Spanish empire. During those years immense wealth allowed the city to grow larger than London at the time and the mountain was quickly given the epithet Cerro Rico – the 'rich mountain'. But today, Potosí’s inhabitants are some of the poorest in South America while the mountain itself has been so greedily plundered that its summit is on the verge of collapsing. So many people have died in the mines that the Cerro Rico is now called the 'mountain that eats men’. In this captivating, moving tale of harrowing bravery and wistful beauty Ander Izagirre tells the story of the mountain and those who risk their lives in its shadow through the eyes of Alicia – a 14-year-old girl working in the dark, dangerous mines to support her family. Through her eyes we can come to know the story of postcolonial Bolivia.

[Shares] the spirit of Eduardo Galeano... but Izagirre gets closer to the ground. * Praise for the Spanish edition, Ricardo Martínez Llorca, Culturamas *
Izagirre’s narrative of characters eking out a living amidst what, for many, ultimately became silver-lined tombs is deft, admirable, and haunting. * Kim MacQuarrie, author of Life and Death In the Andes *
Burning with a quiet power and rage, The Mountain that Eats Men will move you to tears and to anger. * Mark Mann, author of The Gringo Trail *
Extremely well written … uses what appears to be a small, personal story to tell a much wider, more universal one… Like Kapuscinski, he finds the drop of water that reflects everything around it. * Praise for the Spanish edition, Martín Caparrós, El País *
With echoes of Galeano’s political ire and Salgado’s immersive rawness, Izagirre has produced a gut-puncher of a book. * Oliver Balch, author of Viva South America! *

ISBN: 9781786994554

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 258g

240 pages