Simón Bolívar. The Liberator, the greatest hero of the War of Independence, a legendary figure. A ruler who voluntarily relinquished power. Only recently, he had commanded armies and held sway over nations, and then, suddenly—resignation. The final months of Bolívar’s life are a period about which historians know almost nothing. Yet, under the pen of the greatest master of magical realism, legend transforms into truth, and truth into myth. Facts serve merely as a framework for the book’s true narrative; the aging Bolívar’s very real ‘final journey’ down the river becomes a voyage from the world of the living to the realm of the dead—a journey along the path of memory, where the general must, for the last time, settle scores with everyone he loved or hated in this life.