The Amazon Diary

By Elzo Smid

In the late 1970s, Dutchman Anton Smelt is sent to Peru by his employer, an international food company. It's a challenging assignment after a year of rest, so he decides to keep a diary. In the Amazon rainforest he encounters one of the great mysteries of biology: how do new Brazil nut trees grow? After the wet season the rock-hard fruits fall from the tree onto the soggy soil and then nothing happens, or so it seems.
Step by step Anton discovers more. He finds out why there are no plantations with Brazil nut trees, how the rainforest is much more than the sum of its trees, and how everything is connected. But still the jungle seems unwilling to reveal its biggest secret.

Elzo Smid (1963) studied human geography and graphic design. Previously he published a short-story collection, a children's book about a hermit crab, and a non-fiction book about an urban myth prevalent in the Netherlands and Italy. Everything reflects his fascination for organisms, food chains, and symbioses in nature. This is his first novella, a fact-based work of fiction written as a diary.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9083055973
• ISBN13: 9789083055978
• Release Date: November 2023
• Publisher: Esog
• Length: 92 Pages
• Weight: 0.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.3" x 8.0"