¿Puede una planta cambiar el mundo? La caña de azúcar es uno de los ejemplos más impactantes. Desde el siglo XVII, su cultivo y comercio movieron personas y bienes a través del Atlántico, enriqueciendo a unos pocos y provocando la muerte y el desplazamiento de millones. Chinos, hindúes, escoceses, judíos, y esclavizados africanos se encontraron —o fueron forzados a encontrarse— en los cañaverales, donde nacieron nuevas lenguas, surgieron o se transformaron deidades, y aparecieron sabores que no existían antes. A través de datos históricos y pasajes literarios, exploraremos el impacto duradero de esta planta en el mundo, hasta nuestros días. Listado de canciones: Azúcar, azúcar - Celia Cruz; Man Down - Rihanna; Mor Tor - Rikki Jai; Poenta Poenta - Lieve Hugo; Oiga, mire, vea - Guayacán Orquesta; Oui parle Francais - Compay Segundo; Guajira Guantanamera - Compay Segundo; Un mal sueño - Tirso Duarte. Fragmentos en inglés: June Henfrey. The Cane Cutter (pp. 61-62). Coming home and other stories. Peepal Tree Press, 2005. As he awaited his turn to drink, Reuben looked around him. His head throbbed. The sweet sickly smell of cane juice filled the air. From the mill on the ridge above him there drifted the stronger cooking smell of the juice being boiled in enormous vats, thickening into the syrup which the children loved before it deepened into molasses or hardened into sugar. The throbbing in his head grew worse. Living cane was his world. He loved the pale green shoots that showed above the black earth soon after planting. Later, the half-grown plants would whisper together in the wind and rain. Later still, the fleecy silver-grey arrow fronds would wave and sigh in the year´s turning. If Reuben had told the other slaves that he talked to the cane, they would have laughed. Perhaps someone would have made up a song, a teasing piece to be sung when they gathered, in rare periods of leisure, under the big silk cotton tree behind the range of huts where they lived. So Reuben didn´t tell anyone. His mother, Lizzie, had died when he was still young, leaving him something of a loner, wrapped in the memory of the closeness they had shared." (p. 62) Cynthia McLeod. The Cost of Sugar (p. 212). Tr. Gerald. Mettam. Hoperoad, Londers, 2013. But now Jan saw that the man had no weapon in his hands. The gun was propped up against a tree. The man leaned towards him. Perhaps he would rather strangle him or hack him to pieces with his machete? Jan raised his hands in defence. Still the one hand was bleeding. "No," he cried, both hands in front of his face. But the man said, "What´s the matter? Get up, get up." Jan looked at his leg. Perhaps the man wanted to fight him. Then the man looked at the leg, too. He bend down and began carefully to undo Jan´s boot. Jan groaned from the pain. When the boot was removed, Jan looked at the leg, which now had a large swelling at the site of the fracture. Now the man shook his head gently, saying something while trying cautiously to lay the leg in a better position. Then he went to a bush, cut off several branches with his machete and, after having stripped them, lay hem on each side of Jan´s leg. He said something again, but Jan could not understand what he meant.   Some way off lay his pack. The man went to it and got something out. It was his neck cloth. He tore several shreds off and began to fasten the sticks carefully along the leg. Jan could not understand. Was the man not going to murder him, then? It was after all one of the dreaded bush-negroes? The man said, "Don´t be afraid, I´ll be back soon." Then he went away. Even if he had wanted to, Jan could not have gone anywhere. The pain was too great and he was feeling totally exhausted. A little later the man came back with another man. They had a kind of stretcher with them, bound together with lianas. They lay Jan very carefully on the stretcher and took him away.