Empresas y tribulaciones de Maqroll el Gaviero, 1

Enterprises and Tribulations by Maqroll el Gaviero brings together the seven novels that constitute the exciting career of the emblematic character of Mutis, an old sailor who sails the most remote seas and who has become an archetype of universal literature. In this first volume, Maqroll undertakes, in La Nieve del Almirante, a desperate journey upstream through the waters of the Xurandó River, in which, under an inclement sun and at the mercy of illness, he will travel, shipwrecked, the path to true meaning. of an existence that is nothing but for risk. We find him again in Ilona Arrives with the Rain, aboard the Hansa Stern bound for Panama, where he will become a sailor on land bound by Ilona's arms, until another woman, Larissa, points out new voyages for him. "Death transforms life into destiny," as Malraux said, seems to be the maxim that governs the Gaviero's adventures in Un Bel Morir, but, despite being involved in a story of smuggling and tragedy, he will survive to embark, in The Last scale of the "tramp steamer", in an old and dilapidated freighter that picks up any merchandise in any port in order to continue the journey: a beautiful metaphor for the transitory and impossible loves that will end, as it could not be otherwise, in shipwreck.