Amazonia in Ruins: Nostalgia and Critique in Órfãos do Eldorado

• In Event: The International Amazon

Abstract

I analyze how Milton Hatoum’s 2008 novel Órfãos do Eldorado critiques the integration of Amazonia into processes of modernization and into the narrative of History. By constantly invoking the idea of Amazonia as a site of “El Dorado,” the legend that served for the inscription of the region into the teleology of capitalism, the novel remembers a past that is longed for, but also questioned and critiqued. As an outsider from his family, the city, and ultimately of History, the protagonist’s voice stands as an alternative narrative that resists the idea of progress leading to freedom and redemption. The novel situates the narrative in opposition to a would-be historical account of the Cordovil family tentatively titled “Façanhas de um civilizador.” By articulating a critique of History, Hatoum engages in an intertextual dialogue with da Cunha’s idea of Amazonia “at the margins of History” (1909). While da Cunha represented Amazonia as a place soon to be integrated into History, Hatoum does so by focusing on the ruins left by the arrival of modernity. Moreover, Órfãos do Eldorado re-elaborates the topic of the rubber era in Amazonia and redefines the tradition of the “novelas de las selva” by representing the region through the rarely seen urban experience of the industrialized and cosmopolitan cities of Manaus and Belém do Pará. Through the contrast between the once vibrant cities of the rubber boom and the globalized urban spaces of today, where tourists and shantytowns overlap, the novel highlights its critical vision of Amazonia’s modernity.

Author

• Camilo Jaramillo Castrillón