Majestic River

Rivers are not mere geographical features; they are conduits of history, carriers of culture, and architects of ecosystems. From the towering peaks of the Himalayas to the sprawling deltas of the Amazon, each river has carved its narrative, etching indelible stories into the geographies it traverses. As we embark on this literary exploration, let us navigate the currents of time, immersing ourselves in the narratives that have unfolded along the banks of the great rivers of our world. The tales woven into the fabric of this collection span the continents, from the ancient cradle of Mesopotamia, where the Tigris and Euphrates once whispered to Sumerian poets, to the expansive waterways of the Amazon, where the rainforest hums with the secrets of the mighty river. We delve into the mythologies of the Ganges, sacred and revered, carrying the spiritual aspirations of millions within its gentle ripples. The Nile, with its storied past, whispers echoes of pharaohs and pyramids, a testament to the ingenuity of ancient civilizations.

This New York Times bestseller from Dennis Lehane is a gripping, unnerving psychological thriller about the effects of a savage killing on three former friends in a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood. When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened—something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay —demons that urge him to do terrible things. When Jimmy’s daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy’s daughter died covered in someone else’s blood. A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love and loyalty, faith and family, in which people irrevocably marked by the past find themselves on a collision course with the darkest truths of their own hidden selves.

In the wake of the recognition of the Whanganui River in New Zealand, the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers in India, the Yarra River in Australia and the Atrato River in Colombia as «subjects of rights», the International Observatory on Nature’s Rights has initiated a reflection on the possibility of recognizing the St. Lawrence River, the «path that walks» as it is called by the First Nations, as a «legal person». The texts in this collective work deal with the implications of attributing a legal personhood and rights to the St. Lawrence River, delve into the epistemological foundations of the paradigm of the recognition of the rights of Nature and present concrete cases of recognition of rivers as subjects of law. Written by experts from several countries where the recognition of the legal personhood of rivers has occurred to date, they take an in-depth look at the challenges and contributions of this paradigm shift in river protection. This book answers questions about the implications of such recognition and contributes to the process of building a new law that has just begun in Quebec and Canada with the adoption in February 2021 of resolutions conferring the status of «legal person» on the MagPie/ Muteshekau Shipu River located on the North Shore of Quebec and on the Nitassinan (ancestral territory) of two Innu communities, Ekuanitshit and Uashat mak Mani-utemam. Contributions : Inès Bennada, David Cordero Heredia, Teresa Vicente Giménez, Stratégies Saint-Laurent, Isabelle Delainey, Uapukun Mestokosho, Sylvain Gaudreault, Andrew Galliano, Nathalia Parra, Bianca De Marchi Moyano, Hugo Muñoz, Danaé Espinoza, Erin O’Donnell, Brettel Dawson, Shrishtee Bajpai, Rébecca Pétrin, Sokhna Sene, Victor David, Daniel Turp and Yenny Vega Cárdenas.