John Gimlette: At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig

Reviewed by KAPKA KASSABOVA

How much do you know about Paraguay? You're excused: there's no separate travel guide, few modern travel accounts, no myth, no famous sports star or revolutionary. Most references occur in fiction. John Gimlette was planning a novel too, but he found the country too improbable to fictionalise. The result is this improbably titled but supremely lucid journey through one of the world's weirdest countries.

Nineteenth-century Paraguay has been getting some press lately, through a flurry of books on Paraguay's notorious grande dame, Eliza Lynch. But if the alliance of the avaricious Lynch with the country's porcine, depraved and politically inept ruler Lopez was lurid and destructive, so is the rest of Paraguay's history.

Gimlette moves back and forth in time, weaving modernity and history, observation and reflection into a mesmerising fabric.

Lugubrious 19th-century dictator de Francia, self-dubbed "el supremo", sealed the borders and proceeded to imprison his enemies; foreigners were barred from leaving. Though modern Paraguay is a young country (40 per cent are under 14), it's a miracle it is still on the map, considering it was shattered by two barbaric wars.

The War of the Triple Alliance, led by Lopez, pitted Paraguay against Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil — a doomed affair. But dictators specialise in doom, and only 60 years later, what remained of Paraguay was thrown into the apocalyptic Chaco War against Bolivia, over a patch of desert.

Then came the paedophile General Don Alfredo Stroessner, whose thuggish entourage tormented the country for three decades. They created nothing except new methods of torture, inspired no doubt by the Nazi criminals who found haven in Paraguay.

Few utopias started in Paraguay have worked out, but many did start at the turn of the century in this misconceived el dorado. Some optimists have even called it South America's Switzerland, but the only thing they have in common is lack of sea.

Paraguayan flora and fauna are equally bewildering, and the border town Ciudad del Este is a base for Islamic fundamentalists. But the soccer team is good, and no other country imports more Scotch. Bon voyage.

* Random House, $26.95

* Kapka Kassabova is an Auckland writer and poet.