Finalist for the Rómulo Gallegos Award, 2025

The novel recounts life in an isolated spot in the mountains, on the banks of the River Nauyaca, where nature reigns supreme and humanity seems to take a back seat. In this mysterious, almost surreal setting, Jeremías disappears; he is a pivotal figure in the community because he holds the secret to ‘bejuco’ spirit, a drink that gives meaning and solace to the inhabitants and offers visions to those who drink it.

Following this disappearance, the story depicts a lost village, marked by loneliness, a search for meaning and a constant ‘thirst’, not only physical but also spiritual. The characters move between the everyday and the strange, in an atmosphere where reality blends with the magical and the dreamlike.

Andrea Mejía writes with the river and like the river, her prose advances between trees and mountains, revealing characters delirious and illuminated by a secret aguardiente. And revealing, too, the fever and calm of inward and outward nature. La sed se va con el río is a dazzling and beautiful novel, and Andrea Mejía is one of the best Colombian writers today. Mónica Ojeda

In each book she combines, always in an unexpected way, the poetic word, the narrative word and the thinking word. Giuseppe Caputo

At this point it is impossible for me to know if Andrea Mejía lives in this world or in the world of her characters, with Patas de Mirlo, Heraquio, Jeremías and Lidia. A world where time is ancient and begins again and again, where she listens to that river that drags, hides, lulls. A river that stays in us and we can never stop hearing. Natalia García Freire

A soft but assertive style, full of poignant images. Aloma Rodríguez, El Mundo, Spain

Andrea Mejía manages to turn the mundane into a vibrant, hypnotic literary world, capable of awakening our five senses. La Sexta, Spain

Her voice is not subscribed to any trend. Hers is one of those unique, beautiful, imperfect insights, full of poetry, that enhance any tradition. Juan David Correa

A very sharp style and yet close to poetry. Eduardo Arias, Cambio Colombia

With stinging dialogues that reach poetic precision, Mejía makes a protagonist of the wilderness. Natalia Consuegra, Escaramuza

… A masterpiece. Luis Fernando Fonseca, Expreso, Ecuador

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