In 1989, well before there was as much awareness about the environmental destruction and injustice as it is today, Chilean writer and journalist Luis Sepulveda published his novel Un viejo que leía novelas de amor. Translated in English in 1992 as The old man who read love stories, it is the story of Antonio José Bolivar Proaño, a sixty-something old widower living in a river town in a remote part of Ecuador in the Amazon rainforest. The old man lives a simple life, troubles no one, cooks simple foods, and minds his own business. He has some education and can read, and he loves to read love stories - the really tragic ones with a happy ending - brought to him by a dentist on an old boat who visits the remote town twice a year. Antonio, though originally not from this part of the country, has also developed an incredible relationship with the local indigenous community (the Shuar) who live in the jungle, and through them has learned to respect the jungle and its........

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