Originally published 1 January 1993 | ||
El Libro de la Tierra Negra is a science-fiction novel by Carlos Gardini. It was digitally published in 1991 by the magazine, Axxón, in print in 1993 by Ediciones Letra Buena, and later by Equipo Sirius in 2001. It won the 1991 Axxón Prize, and the 1992 Más Allá Prize awarded by the Argentine Science Fiction and Fantasy Circle.
The novel is set 2000 years in the future, at a time when an Ecumenical Church has established a theocracy on most of Earth, divided up into different protectorates. The title, which translates to "The Book of Black Earth", refers to an arid region near a city called Teodor-poli. A gigantic tree grows there, the Black Earth tree, fallen from space two hundred years before and somehow related to an expedition on Earth one thousand years before. Såncamar, the book's protagonist is the son of Andrés O'Bardo La Tour, a guardian of Teodor-poli, and of Irenea, a "contaminated" from the marginal Luctu Al region. Såncamar's birth and conception were planned due to a prophecy which said that only the child of one devout and one contaminated person could enter the Black Earth and conquer it without going insane.
The novel's plot creates parallels with the gospel of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Related links
Fragmento de la novela