Today we talk about The Ayahuasca Lodge & Postcards to the Dead, a book by Tim Deppe published with our publishing house Europe Books.
Europe Books had the pleasure of interviewing the author Tim Deppe to get to know him better, where and when he found the inspiration him to write his book The Ayahuasca Lodge & Postcards to the Dead, as well as how he chose his protagonists’ identity and if they represent part of himself.
Below you can find our interview. Take a seat and enjoy your reading!!!
- Where and when did you find the inspiration to write your book?
‘The Ayahuasca Lodge’ was the result of having travelled on dozens of branches of the Amazon’s ‘Tree of Rivers’ since 1975, when first hiking between Colombia’s Rio Caqueta and the Putumayo River to Puerto Leguizamo. Various predators from reptilian to common thieves, FARC, concessionaire loggers, greedy gold miners, ubiquitous oilmen, land grabbers and the like, all became part of the woodwork. So, is it little wonder then, that in the following decades, the spirituality of Peru’s Native people would, like everything else, also be preyed on, cherry picked, packaged, and commercially sold in Ayahuasca lodges, often owner by foreigners? And like in some play, one-night years ago in Iquitos, I serendipitously ran into an old friend since youth, who I had not seen for almost twenty years. And what has he been doing for those decades, but running an ayahuasca lodge. He soon invited me to come with him by boat to the remote location of the lodge, where a few years later he died a suspicious death. It is this place and him, which I have fictionalised. So, to you, my old friend, Scott P., because you were so well read, I know there is no need for any ‘postcards to the dead’, to excuse the literary liberties I have taken. But at the same time, amongst the Amazon’s tangled web it is heartening to know that some unknown individuals clearly made a difference for the good. Because of the Putumayo I learned how a young, indigent, Walter Hardenburg and his friend Perkins in the early 20th century became unsung heroes by risking their lives exposing the genocide of Natives in the Putumayo area. Hardenburg’s book ‘Putumayo The Devil’s Paradise’ reveals how his tenacity for justice defeated the most prestigious rubber baron of all time, Julio Arana, who famously lit his cigars with one-hundred dollar bills. And without Walter Hardenburg, then Roger Casement would never have been commissioned by Great Britain to investigate and record Arana’s crimes. Then after more than a century later the next person to make such a mark for justice there was the late British, activist priest, Paul McCauley. His unsolved 2019 murder and immolation in Iquitos and questionable investigation by even his British embassy, reveals how much of an unruly jungle the Amazon still is. So, let this be a small tribute to such solitary, selfless, servants of the selva, whose lives shined brighter than all of today’s laws and environmental groups benefitting from, yet unable to stop the rampant depletion of the forests.
- What is the message you want to convey to your readers?
Sometimes a solitary person can do more than an army. But there are certain things along the river of life one should not do; and lessons learned depend on the learner. Paying to seek visions though requires one to partially close one’s eyes to the reality around one.
- How did you choose the protagonists’ identity? Do they represent part of yourself?
All the characters were taken from traces and footprints in my memory. Not sure how one can peg me in all of that. But, as said, one character, Kilham, the shamanic businessman and Ayahuasca lodge owner, was an old friend, who somehow fell to his death. But though claiming ayahuasca to be a sacred plant, yet he was very willing to sell it… and refused to heed the prophetic warnings of tribal shamans. And some others, who I purposely thinly masked, may still live in Iquitos.
- I read that you have worked around the world. How did your Writing benefit from this “working around the world” experience?
Well, besides ‘The Ayahuasca Lodge’ & ‘Postcards to the Dead’ the only other published work I have is ‘Little Gardens of Words,’ which is about my ‘working around the world’ with indigenous tribes. This certainly presents fertile ground for writing, but the outcome depends on the writer.
- Are you working on a new writing project, you can tell us about?
I have two more manuscripts ready. One is a children’s book. The other is a book of travel, history and cultural stories of my Bookseed NGO work with tribal peoples in remote places of Asia and Africa. This is a sequel to the Latin American stories in ‘Little Gardens of Words,’ published by Litwin Books in California. This new writing includes stories mixed with travel, history, culture about my work in Bhutan with their Ministry of Ed, and with the Nagas in Myanmar, with Chongpa nomads in Ladakh, smuggling Myanmar kid’s books to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, helping poverty stricken schools, orphanages, jails and farmers in Sri Lanka, The Andaman Islands, Sao Tome /Principe, and meeting with five tribal kings in the Grassland kingdoms of N.W. Cameroon….
Europe Books thanks the author Tim Deppe once again for taking the time and answering our questions. We are really pleased to have walked alongside him on the editorial path that led to the publication of his book The Ayahuasca Lodge & Postcards to the Dead. We wish him the best of luck for his book and for his future works.
To you, my dear reader, may this book be a source of reflection and inspiration thanks to the great experiences told by the author who knows very well the spectacular Amazon environment and its vicissitudes, unfortunately with the sad view on the ongoing rampant depletion of the forests.
So, my dear reader, all I have to say is to enjoy your reading!
Your editor!