A moving portrayal of loss, consolation and solidarity in a remote Mexican community

‘It seemed that even the jungle fell silent for a moment as if it wanted to help save a little child’

In the depths of the Mexican jungle, American traveller Gerard Gales is hunting for alligators, when he comes across a small village along the banks of the Huayalexco. Invited into the local community, Gales joins a huge party, held just across the river. But tragedy strikes when a young boy suddenly disappears into the pitch-dark night. As the villagers grapple with their loss, they come together in the face of life’s harshest realities, and something unspoken is born. A work of vivid description and radical empathy, Traven’s 1929 novel is a moving portrait of consolation and belonging in a remote indigenous community.