Lonesome George

Lonesome George is a comic odyssey that combines travel adventure and comedy in a journey of epic proportions. Author Jorge Sotirios illuminates the beauty of the South American landscape, interweaving its history, culture and people, in his mock heroic quest. Beginning with the writer lured to South American by an Argentine beauty, his journey commences across the equator, through the Amazon jungle and climaxes in the austere Galapagos Islands. Incorporating angels in Argentina to sham Peruvian shaman. From Amazombies appearing on midnight boats, to visiting the lost city of Fordlandia. Accompanying ecowarriors to far -flung villages where jaguars roam, the writer ultimately finds the site of the legendary Amazon warrior women, gliding over the Mirror of the Moon Lake where everything is doubled. The alluring pink dolphin in the Amazon River, said to charm whoever encounters it, is a constant presence. Missionaries and Tarzans coexist with the cult of Che Guevara, with serious topics such as oil exploitation, deforestation and drought. Lonesome George is South America as seen from street and river level and a life- affirming portrayal of people and human emotion as Sotirios' confronts his doppelganger, "Lonesome George", the last surviving tortoise of his species.

Jorge Sotirios was born in the shadow of Bradman Oval in the Southern Highlands of NSW and worked at his father's Mittagong cafe when not obsessively following the St. George Dragons. Since then he has travelled the globe as travel journalist covering the Arts, the Environment, Politics and Culture and has written for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Literary Review. Part philosopher, part adventurer and always the clown, Sotirios has travelled to 30 countries working as a foreign correspondent.