EVERY DAY THE RIVER CHANGES

Recalling Paul Theroux and Peter Matthiessen, an immersive narrative of four weeks journeying along the path of the Magdalena river in Colombia - a story not only about life by the banks of a river, but also about how a country moves on after long and devastating conflict - by an American writer of Syrian, Iraqi, and Argentine descent who finds surprising cultural resonances in this part of the world.

The Magdalena River, nearly one thousand miles long, has for centuries been considered the heart of Colombia. By its banks, there are villages which have seen the devastation of war, as well as the town that may have inspired Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Macondo.

In this traveler's tale, which follows the river from its source high in the Andes to its mouth on the Caribbean coast, the Magdalena is brought to life through the stories of those who live along its banks - the elderly man who has been building artisanal wooden canoes on the banks of the river for decades, the biologists who are studying the river's wild and invasive hippopotamuses, the man behind Colombia's famous traveling library on donkeys, and the master jeweler of a town stuck in time.

In a gripping story of adventure featuring both hopeful and difficult moments with Colombians from all walks of life, Every Day the River Changes examines what the river represents for each of them - in terms of what their country once was, and what it hopes to be in the future - as Colombia undergoes a drastic transition from war to peace.

JORDAN SALAMA is a nonfiction writer, journalist, and television producer originally from Pelham, New York. A 2019 graduate of Princeton University, his work has been published multiple times in the The New York Times, and a radio feature that he produced was broadcast on NPR's "All Things Considered."