A moving family and mystical journey into the Amazon rainforest. Born to a Dutch mother and Surinamese father he doesn't know, Raoul is barely thirty when he receives an email: **I AM LOOKING FOR MY SON RAOUL DE JONG ☺☺☺. ** From this late meeting with his father about his Surinamese ancestry, a mention of a mysterious ancestor who transformed himself into a jaguar, catches the writers attention. Raoul sets out in search of this enigmatic ancestor through the Surinamese jungle. In this quest for the jaguar, the young writer searches for his own humanity in this true optimistic manifesto.

“Written two years before the Netherlands’ “apology” at the end of 2022 for having practiced slavery for two hundred fifty years, *Jaguar Man *paints, at last, from life, the portrait of a worldly country” —Le Monde

"A unique mix of non-fiction and fiction, classic quest, travel story, life lesson, prayer and fairy tale, literature and historiography” — NRC Handesblad

“(Raoul de Jong) is both narrator and character, a charming and funny guide as he goes deeper into the forest and climbs, with signs and clues, the branches of his family tree” — Libération

Raoul de Jong (1984) published eight books and wrote columns for multiple newspapers. His book Jaguarman, which was published in 2020, was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, the Boekenbon Literature Prize, the Boon and the E. du Perron Prize. In 2022, he received the Anna Blaman Prize for his entire oeuvre. In 2023, Raoul wrote the Dutch National Bookweek Essay Boto Banja, which entered the bestseller lists at number 1. His work is translated in German, French and English.