Chile’s fantasy fiction: deadly fungi, illegal logging and Indigenous uprisings

The fantasy and science fiction genres can often tackle the pressing issues of the day with depth and imagination, sometimes even better than realistic novels. El vasto territorio (A Vast Land, in English) by Chilean author Simón López Trujillo tells the story of a worker in the lumber industry infected by a fungus that takes over his mind and body, leading an Indigenous community down a mystical and religious path of resistance. Using fantastical narrative elements, the novel sheds light on extractivism in southern Chile, labor union struggles, violence against the Indigenous Mapuche people, the Chilean dictatorship and the climate crisis.

To tackle these problems, López doesn’t choose to paint a grand masterpiece. Instead, he focuses on the brushstrokes, the intimate settings, and the impact of historical events on the everyday lives and experiences of working-class families. The novel juxtaposes colloquial language with the technical jargon of a scientist investigating the fungus phenomena to present a contrast in social classes.

“I wasn’t very interested in writing a folkloric or anthropological narrative. Much of the logging jargon in the book is used for poetic effect, for the sound of the words,” said the author, who was in Madrid for a promotional book tour. López speaks with impressive speed and precision, as if ideas are constantly flowing through his mind, eager to be expressed. He draws inspiration from Chilean authors like Marta Brunet, Carlos Droguett, and Manuel Rojas, as well as the dreamlike world of Juan Rulfo, where peasants become philosophers interpreting their worlds. López doesn’t believe critical thinking should be the exclusive purview of academics. Instead, he aims to highlight “the power of thought across different social classes.”

The novel describes how automation is changing the lumber industry, and the gruesome accidents and deaths that ensue. Massive machines and saws sever limbs and crush bodies in López’s story. Meanwhile, a diligent scientist named Giovanna meticulously investigates the enigmatic fungus. López’s fascination with this topic and the scientific process is evident. He says he was inspired by the Netflix documentary Fantastic Fungi, and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s book, The Mushroom at the End of the World.

Fungi, rhizomes and Spinoza

“It’s an incredible kingdom,” said López. Toadstools, fungi, and mushrooms are just the visible part of organisms that extend underground (mycelium) and can connect trees over vast land areas. One of the largest living organisms on Earth — a honey mushroom (Armillaria ostoyae) in Oregon’s Malheur National Forest — is hard to spot without magnification. It covers an area equal to 1,350 football fields and has been thriving for 2,400 years.

“Fungi are very good at forming interspecies communities and creating symbiosis with those species,” said López. “For me, they are also a metaphor for intertextuality.” Each paragraph in the novel can be viewed as an underground conversation with many other paragraphs. The mushroom can also serve as a metaphor for the internet or Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome theory (a nonlinear network with connections — like hypertext links — but no apparent order or coherency).

“I personally see literature the way Ben Lerner does — not as a strict canon, but as a lively conversation between authors, both living and dead, young and old. Everything is connected… kind of like mushrooms.” López studied philosophy at the University of Chile, and the influence of Spinoza — the philosopher who saw God in nature — is reflected in this novel. When a peculiar fungus infects the logger in the story, he starts issuing cryptic and poetic prophesies that spread throughout the community, leading to a new, somewhat delirious religion.

The Mapuche struggle

López’s novel also takes up the cause of Chile’s largest Indigenous group, the Mapuche people, who live in the Araucanía region (central Chile). The Mapuches say they have suffered three invasions: the Spanish conquest, the Chilean government, and now the logging companies that encroached on ancestral lands during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. “Their demands for sovereignty and territorial autonomy, for land recovery, have been labeled as terrorist acts. But it’s a very complex struggle with many nuances. Araucanía is an area of intense conflict but also of immense literary power,” said López, citing authors of Mapuche ancestry like Daniela Catrileo, Roxana Miranda Rupailaf and David Aniñir.

The novel is dedicated to union leader Rodrigo Cisterna (who was not of Mapuche origin), who was killed in 2007 at the age of 26 during a worker protest. “They were just asking for simple things like a wage increase and an end to the subcontracting that took jobs from over half of the workers. But things have gotten even worse,” said López. “I’m really interested in describing those labor movements that were completely shut down during the dictatorship. The lives and livelihoods of these people are very precarious.”

There are many varieties of environmentalism, and López is against the one espoused by the lumber industry. “Environmentalism often aims to disconnect nature from the human experience and utilize the landscape in ways that disregard this connection. I’m intrigued by a narrative that challenges this perspective.” An example is the environmentalism that sees the preservation of nature as a way to expand the tourism industry. There are also many end-of-the-world scenarios. “That’s something else I’m interested in. I want to confront the scenarios coming from the United States and Europe. But in Latin America, we’ve already experienced the end of the world with the Spanish conquest. And aren’t we seeing the end of the world in Gaza?”

López’s novel doesn’t take place in a post-pandemic dystopia. Rather, it describes the beginning of the end — the case of patient zero. This allows the writer to move about in a small domain without getting lost in a global catastrophe involving many characters and settings. Everything is more isolated and more meaningful. While a story about a deadly fungus decimating the human race may be reminiscent of the video game and TV series The Last of Us, this novel approaches the subject very differently. “In fact, I haven’t even seen the series or played the game,” said López. “But I love Pedro Pascal, the Chilean actor who stars in the series.”

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