The stories of the great navigators and travelers
The first stories about Patagonia are of course the work of great navigators. Antonio Pigafetta, one of the eighteen survivors of Magellan's first circumnavigation of the world, published a major work with his travel diary in 1524, giving rise to the legend of the Patagons. He also wrote a Vocable of the Giants of Patagonia, in fact the first dictionary of the Tehuelche. John Byron, for his part, published his superb Shipwreck in Patagonia after his terrible misadventures at the end of the world in the 1740's. There is also Charles Darwin who relates his stay in Tierra del Fuego, Magellan and Chiloe between 1831 and 1836 in his Voyage of a Naturalist around the World. He describes the plants, animals, fossils... while allowing himself some rather unfortunate facilities on the inhabitants of these faraway regions. Then comes the time of novelists such as Jules Verne who publishes three novels inspired by the discoveries of the end of the 19th century: Le Phare du bout du monde, En Magellanie and Les Naufragés du Jonathan
. In the following century, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry published Vol de nuit (1929), following his trip to Patagonia to open the Aéropostale route in South America. A few years later, in 1977, Bruce Chatwin (1940-1977) published En Patagonie, a cult book for all lovers of this faraway land. Unfortunately, because of AIDS, he did not have the time to tell us more about this part of the world that attracted him so much. He is followed by Paul Edward Theroux, who publishes Patagonie Express in 1979, an account of his train journey from the United States to Patagonia.Patagonia through some authors
The great Chilean writer Francisco Coloane, who was born in Quemchi, Chiloé in 1910 and died in Santiago in 2002, evokes, in a masterly way, the lives of these men from the other side of the world in most of his works. He sang the simple and raw beauty of Patagonia like no other. As a young man, during his stay in Magallanes and Tierra del Fuego, he carried out various jobs: sheep keeper, oil prospector, sailor and wild horse trainer... These experiences mark his writings forever. He received the National Literature Prize in Chile in 1964 and was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in France in 1997. In our country, critics compare him to Jules Verne, Melville or Conrad.
In a similar vein, Luis Sepúlveda, in his novel Le monde du bout du monde, takes us on a whale chase through the Strait of Magellan. Also read his Patagonia Express and his Latest News from the South. This Chilean writer was born in Ovalle in 1949. Close to Allende in his youth, he was active at a very young age in the Communist Youth. But at the age of 25, he was sentenced to 28 years in prison by Pinochet's military regime. He was accused in particular of treason of the fatherland, subversive conspiracy and membership of armed groups. He was released two and a half years later by Amnesty International. His love of travel, his revolutionary commitments and his political and environmental convictions took him as far as Peru and Colombia, where he became involved in protest movements. The year after his release, he goes to the Shuar Indians as part of a programme for UNESCO. When he returned from that year of immersion in the Amazon, he wrote his first novel, Le Vieux qui lisait des roman d'amour. It's an international success, translated into 35 languages. This was followed by a dozen novels, including The Roses of Atacama, Diary of a Sentimental Killer and A Bullfighter's Name. German then Spanish by adoption, he lived in Europe, notably in Hamburg then in Paris. He finally settled in Gijon, Spain a little more than twenty years ago. La Fin de l'Histoire, his last novel, is a detective story about the black history and dark hours of the Chilean dictatorship. It reveals some facets of this period and plunges the reader into a story full of suspense and action. All these books are marked by his political and environmental commitment. Through his writings, he evokes Patagonia a great deal, notably in his book Dernières nouvelles du Sud, which evokes his 1996 trip with photographer Daniel Mordzinski. In it, we discover the historical and daily realities of this region as well as anecdotes and legends that still persist today. In his 1994 novel, Patagonia Express
, he pays homage to Francisco Coloane, who passed on his love of the region to him. We meet a host of unique and touching characters with more or less crazy lives. The book ends with the following words: "I will never be alone again. Coloane had given me his ghosts, his characters, the Indians and emigrants from all latitudes who live in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, his sailors and their wandering sailors. They all accompany me and allow me to say out loud that living is a wonderful exercise". Finally, although Chile is his native country, he only regained Chilean nationality in May 2017. He died in 2020 from Covid-19.Let us now mention Jean Raspail (born in 1925) who romanticizes the life of the self-proclaimed king of Araucania in his genial Moi, Antoine de Tounens, roi de Patagonie (1981), grand prix du roman de l'Académie française. Patagonia left a deep impression on the French writer and explorer. In 1986, Patagonia will again be in the spotlight in Qui se souvenir des hommes... In 2001, he wrote Adiós, Tierra del Fuego, where he delivers moving and erudite recollections about the ancient times of discoveries and the reality of today, the flight of time and the disappearance of millenary peoples... Let's now talk about Patricio Manns, with his Lone Rider
(1999), who also delivers a beautiful picaresque novel about the gold digger Julio Popper who, at the end of the 19th century, establishes a real dictatorship in Tierra del Fuego and massacres the Onas Indians. The American writer Paul Edward Théroux, born in 1941, is best known for his travel stories, including Railway Bazaar (a train journey from Great Britain to Japan) and Patagonia Express (the same adventure from the United States to Patagonia). In a caustic mood, he left sharp impressions of the landscapes he travelled through and the people he met. Finally, let us mention that recently, Caryl Férey's best-seller Mapuche (2012) offers us a novel in which the Mapuche heroine evolves in the dark areas of Argentina.
