El Tercer Paraíso (Premio Alfaguara 2022) / The Third Paradise

"The 2020 quarantine is fast approaching, and the protagonist feels the urge to retire to his cabin on the outskirts of Buenos Aires to face whatever may come in the near future. While he waits, he starts to grow a garden with all kinds of plants and flowers. His love for nature leads him to research the creation of scientific thought, the birth of botany, and the great adventures of European expeditions of the eighteenth century. At the same time, he recalls his family's history, one that was uprooted from its core in Daglipulli, Chile, by the Pinochet dictatorship. Little by little, this unique setting is flooded by the memory of the sweet dahlias that his grandmother Alba used to grow, the exuberant and threatening presence of the Amazon jungle that Humboldt first laid his eyes on in 1799, and the then controlled sale of the hybrids that he now buys in nurseries. In this paradise, and at different degrees of conservation, the natural landscape of the Southern Cone becomes a central character, with its own rhythms and with the footprints left behind by those who tried to settle it. History, botany, and the family's story come together and mark the protagonist's personality, his life choices, and his way of being part of this world."--Provided by publisher.