Rekindled: Anne Raeff in Conversation With Oscar Villalon
On this episode of Rekindled, hosted by Green Apple Books, ZYZZYVA editor Oscar Villalon speaks with Anne Raeff about her new book, Only the River. Raeff discusses Bolivia, revolution, the San Juan River, and the enduring presence of nature. Please purchase Only The River online from Green Apple Books, or through Bookshop.
From the episode:
Oscar Villalon: Could you talk a little bit about the San Juan river? You evoke it in the novel as a very incredible place, as very pristine, but one that must be traversed with some caution.
Anne Raeff: Yes, for those who don’t know, this is the river that would be traversed to get from the Pacific to the Atlantic; it’s how people during the gold rush traversed the country. It used to be a much deeper river, there were steamboats on it. All of history is on this little river. There’s a Spanish fortress along it, that to me, is a looming history of the conquest. There was a time when this river was much mightier and deeper, you could travel, but because of the cultivation around it—in some way nature has taken over. Nature is stronger now than ever.
