| Forest of the Pygmies | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Isabel Allende |
| Original title | El Bosque de los Pigmeos |
| Translator | Margaret Sayers Peden |
| Language | Spanish |
| Series | Las memorias del águila y el jaguar[2] (The Memories of the Eagle and the Jaguar) |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Plaza & James Editores (Spanish version)[1] |
| Publication date | 2004 |
| Published in English |
2005 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 224 pp (Spanish version)[1] |
| ISBN | ISBN 8401341809 (Spanish version)[1] |
| OCLC Number | 58725253 |
| Preceded by | Kingdom of the Golden Dragon |
Forest of the Pygmies is a novel written by Chilean novelist Isabel Allende. The Spanish original was published in 2004, while the English version was released in the following year.[3] The book is the last part of a trilogy that furthermore comprises the two preceding volumes City of the Beasts and Kingdom of the Golden Dragon. Like others in the trilogy, this novel was translated by Margaret Sayers Peden from Spanish.
Contents |
The story opens with the main characters Nadia Santos and Alexander Cold being on safari in Kenya and accompanying Alex's grandmother Kate, who works as a reporter for the magazine International Geographic.[4] At a certain point in their stopover, they visit a market where a seer tells them to stay close to each other if they want to avoid danger. Soon afterwards, the team is joined by a Roman Catholic missionary who introduces himself as Brother Fernando. The clergyman asks the crew to fly him to Ngoubé, a village situated deep inside the African jungle. Two of his friars, who had previously moved into the village to look after the heavily disadvantaged population, have recently sent him a letter telling him about the villagers' disastrous conditions and their constantly worsening situation. Their deteriorating state is due to the two rulers of the village, who, alongside the mysterious and powerful sorcerer Sombe, cruelly torment the villagers and are not fond at all of the friars' presence. Despite some arguments arising between Brother Fernando and the seductive African pilot Angie Ninderera, Kate and the others agree to come along with the priest and help him find the friars.
Angie reluctantly agrees to fly the crew to the village's whereabouts. Upon landing, Angie's plane gets broken by crashing onto a small beach, therefore isolating them from the outside world. Several days later, the crew is found by some fishermen who grudgingly guide them to the entrance of a forest which, according to them, belongs to a very dangerous and tyrannical king called Kosongo. He brutally usurped the command of Ngoubé some time earlier - causing the former queen Nana-Asanta to disappear - and terrorizes its population, availing himself of his two assistants, a mysterious sorcerer called Sombe and the commandant Maurice Mbembelé, with both of them being notorious for their cruelty and cold-bloodedness. Once the crew has arrived in the village and been taken to Kosonge, they masquerade as reporters who want to interview Kosongo about his allegedly world-renowned wisdom and supernatural skills. Kosongo finally orders the crew to spend the rest of the day in an unfurnished hut surrounded by soldiers watching them. Over the course of the following nights, Nadia explorates the village on her own and discovers that the villagers' wives are forced to spend the nights imprisoned in a couple of barracks. After some difficulties in terms of communication and understanding, she manages to gain the women's support, who too suffer from the horrible tyranny, having been separated from their husbands and sons. The commandant Mbembelé actually forces those ones to become brainwashed soldiers and obliges them to spy on their own families. Alex and Nadia eventually escape into the forest to search for the pygmies and convince them of rebelling against Kosongo and Mbembelé. They furthermore come across the village's former queen Nana-Asante, who agrees to support them as well.
The pygmies eventually leave the wood and turn up in the village. One of their leaders challenges Mbembelé to a duel. Thanks to his agility and rapidity he finally exhausts the commandant, who is subsequently chased away by Alexander himself in the shape of a giant black jaguar. Shortly after Mbembelé's getaway, the terrifying sorcerer Sombe shows up in the village, his terrifying appearance smashing the villagers' resistance at once. Nadia, who has meanwhile stayed in the forest, arrives in the village in the shape of a white eagle, accompanied by Nana-Asante and many other people equipped with magical powers whom Nadia and Alex had met during their former journeys, each of them being narrated in the two previous volumes of Allende's trilogy. At the end of the battle, when Sombe has to face his imminent failure, Angie rips his mask off, and Mbembelé, Sombe and Kosongo turn out to be the same person. The man is thrown into a waterhole full of crocodiles.
Brother Fernando decides to stay in the village and help the population restore their existence. Angie Ninderera succeeds in contacting a friend of hers, who promises to pick up the crew by means of a helicopter.
The epilogue is set two years after Alex's and Nadia's adventure in the African jungle. Alex has graduated from school and begun to study medicine at Berkeley. He has finally managed to persuade Nadia into attending university in the United States. Alex has just flown to New York City, where Kate and Nadia share an apartment. Alex wants to take Nadia to a graduation ceremony. Kate has written three books about their adventures which she now shows to her grandson.
Teenage emotions, fantasy, lifelong love (between Nadia and Alexander), and acceptance of other religions.
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