Hércules en el Mato Grosso
By Pola Oloixarac & Esteban Insinger
144 pages
ISBN 978-3-910265-110

A true Fitzcarraldo story from the Ur-Wald, Hércules en el Mato Grosso follows the megalomaniac Langsdorff expedition (1824–1828) into the Brazilian Amazonas. Throughout the four year journey, the explorers encounter canibals, are eaten by piranhas or poisoned by their very own scientific experiments. In the end, Baron Langsdorff literally looses his mind and returns mad while the French painter Hércules Florence had invented his style of photography. Yes, years before his compatriot Daguerre.

The babylonic book is as dazzling: it includes an extraordinary essay by the writer Pola Oloixarac, the hallucinogenic libretto of the original opera—inaugurated at the Teatro Colon en Buenos Aires—and a selected soundscore by the composer Esteban Insinger. Further it comes with smooth Begleitmusik, recomposed for the readers and published by Public Possession. All in all in five languages: Portuguese, Spanish, English, German and Quechua.