David Grann On His Bestseller "Lost City of Z"

In 1925, former spy and acclaimed British explorer Percy Harrison Fawcett walked into the Amazon rainforest in search of the fabled lost city of El Dorado — and disappeared. In the decades that followed, scores of adventurers tried, and failed, to retrace his steps. Many died. Others faced harrowing encounters with native tribes, poisoned arrows, cannibalism, dense rainforest, flesh-eating piranhas and massive pythons. None solved what had come to be known as the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century.