Um dio, um rio

“Um Dio, um Rio”, illustrated by Brazilian artist André Neves, is a story with a strong ecological message, but the author deliberately drifts away from realism into a haunting, surreal world to show the tragedy from the inside. The main character and narrator here is the river itself, suffocating in filth. The poetic first-person text is a cry of despair rising from the depths of impenetrable rust, where, like on Mars, there is no life at all.

Interestingly, this story is based on a real environmental disaster that occurred on the Rio Doce River in 2015, when the collapse of a dam sent torrents of toxic sludge all the way to the ocean. At first, it seems that the book’s dominant color — the rusty hue of water from an old faucet — is merely an artistic device. But in photographs, you can see that the water truly turned into a murky, reddish flow.

In Neves’s interpretation, the river becomes a small, lonely boy dying amid rust and debris piled up on the riverbed. Fish, terrified, try to swim away from the wave of mud, but as they flee, they turn into skeletons. These are the victims of the tragedy, the people who perished when the dam broke, the houses and churches that were washed away. The fish try to save life itself and children’s dreams (did you notice the little toy soldier in a paper boat?), carrying away what was most precious. But there is no salvation not for the cities, not for the people.