Federico Andahazi, the author of The Anatomist, returns with a story that promises to shake the foundations of Argentine culture. In his new novel, The Prisoner of the Yerba Plantation (Grijalbo), the writer dives into the life of Aimé Bonpland, the French physician and naturalist who left everything to settle in the Misiones jungle in the early 19th century. His obsession? Yerba mate. Yes, the same mate we drink every day has a past of madness, betrayal, and even hallucinogens.
Bonpland was no ordinary man. He had traveled across the Americas with Alexander von Humboldt, cataloging species and climbing mountains. But when he tried mate in France, something got into his head: turning that infusion into a global phenomenon, like tea in England. And he didn’t stop until he achieved it. But the price was high.
Andahazi reconstructs this story with research that took him to the Triple Frontier, where he lived with Guaraní communities and tracked down old documents. «Bonpland kept his obsession with mate a secret, even from Humboldt,» the writer says. «He imagined a ‘Mate Party,’ something like the Boston Tea Party, but to finance the independence of South America.»
The Frenchman settled in the ruins of the Jesuit missions and began experimenting. But yerba mate is an untamed plant: «When it doesn’t want to grow, there’s no way,» says Andahazi. «The Guaraní consumed it in the wild.» Until Bonpland found a way to domesticate it, and he did so under the effects of a hallucinogenic mate. «That’s what’s fascinating,» adds the author. «The Guaraní had a mate for everything: ritual, ceremonial, medicinal.»
But the story takes a turn when the Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia sees the yerba plantations. «He understood that they represented his dream,» says Andahazi. So he sent a squad of soldiers, killed Bonpland’s workers, and kidnapped him along with his family. Ten years of captivity working as a slave.
Andahazi doesn’t stop at the facts. «I deeply believe in literary hypotheses,» he states. «Through narrative, history can be reconstructed much better than by many historians.» And for that, he traveled to the Triple Frontier, participated in Guaraní ceremonies, and even tried ceremonial mate. «It was an experience that transcended literature,» he confesses.
The writer assures that Bonpland ended up becoming Rousseau’s «noble savage,» leaving behind European culture to embrace Guaraní life. «When you see the Guaraní communities today, you understand that there was also a rupture there,» he says. «But what remains is yerba mate.»
The novel not only tells an incredible adventure but also invites us to look at mate differently. «In all societies where mate is consumed, this drink is much more than a simple infusion,» concludes Andahazi. «Even today, it retains its ritual nature.»
Para mí este Bonpland era un tipazo, laburando pa’ la comunidad mientras los oligarcas se servían el mate con bronce. Lo metieron preso los mismos dueños de la tierra, como siempre. Esto huele a que el poder no quiere que la yerba sea del pueblo. ¡Viva la yerba libre, carajo!
jajaja otro zurdito defendiendo al tal bonpland un francesito que vino a robarnos la yerba para mi la historia la cuentan los zurdos como siempre llorando por un preso que se merecia estar ahi viva la libertad carajo el mate es argentino no de un yanki hippie