The Coca Leaf Collection
Exploring the Sacred Leaf. Honoring Tradition. Awakening Consciousness.
Gaudium
The Prophecy of Coca
By Sandro Calvani & Maurizio Mistretta
Summary
Gaudium: The Prophecy of Coca follows Frank Bartoli, an Italian-American biologist researching coca-derived compounds in search of a cure for his son Pablo's rare form of autism — and who uncovers a 500-year-old Prophecy of Coca, including a formula Pope Leo XIII himself tried and blessed at the end of the 19th century.
His discovery threatens to upend the interests of major pharmaceutical companies, coca-derived beverage producers, and drug traffickers alike, drawing him into a sprawling conspiracy that reaches from the Vatican to China, pursued by mobs and secret agents.
Woven through the science-driven thriller is Mama Coca, the Inca goddess who embodies the future integration of scientific knowledge, imagination, and humanity's emotional intelligence.
Details
- Genre
- Thriller / Suspense
- Publisher
- Independently published
- Publication Date
- December 2025
- Pages
- 237
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 979-8-241439819
About Dr. Sandro Calvani
Sandro Calvani has spent more than four decades at the front lines of international development — from directing the United Nations' anti-drug programs in Bolivia and Colombia, where he ran the UN's largest coca-crop replacement initiatives, to serving as Director-General of UNICRI, the UN's crime and justice research institute, appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
His years inside the world's coca-growing regions — living alongside farmers, negotiating crop-substitution programs, and confronting the drug trade's human cost firsthand — gave him a rare, ground-level understanding of the leaf's dual nature: sacred to Andean culture, and entangled in one of the world's most destructive illicit economies.
Author of nearly 30 books and hundreds of articles on development, human rights, and peace, and recipient of the UN Prize for Creativity and Colombia's Order of San Carlos, Calvani now serves as Senior Adviser at the Mae Fah Luang Foundation in Bangkok, teaching and writing on the issues that have defined his career.