Contents
Introduction: Writing as the Projection of Worlds
A Forest in Flames
Brazilians and Venezuelans: A Chronicle of Hatred and
Compassion
The Life and Death of a Minke Whale in the Amazon
An Afternoon with Venezuelans at the Manaus Bus Terminal
Overpass
The Self-Demarcation of Tupinambá Indigenous Land in the Lower
Tapajós River Basin
Anamã: Six Months Under Water, Six Months on Dry Land
“What They Really Want Is to Kill Us”: Violence and Destruction in
a Mega-Açaí Farm in Pará
The Poison Fields
“Nature Herself is Drying Up”: A Quilombo on the Island of Marajó
Feels the Impact of Rice Paddies Amid Turbulent Times
The Kumuã of the Upper Rio Negro and the Decolonization of
Indigenous Bodies
Between the Festival and the Fight: The Life of the First
Indigenous Person in Brazil to Die from COVID-19
Epilogue: Writing Nearby
Fábio Zuker is the author of The Life and Death of a Minke
Whale in the Amazon. A writer and journalist, he holds a master’s
degree from the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in
Paris and is a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at the
University of São Paulo. He has also been three times a Pulitzer
Center grantee. As a journalist he is a frequent contributor to
Thomson Reuters Foundation and InfoAmazonia who has written for
National Geographic, Revista Piauí, Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil,
Agência Pública, and Nexo Jornal, among others. He is also the
author of On an Escape Route: Essays on Writing, Fear, and Violence
(Hedra Editions, only available in Portuguese). In recent years he
has focused his research on stories of the Amazon rainforest,
looking to write “nearby” the people whose land is being destroyed
and their approaches to resistance.
Ezra E. Fitz is the translator of The Life and Death of a
Minke Whale in the Amazon. He has worked with Grammy-winning
musician Juanes, Emmy-winning journalist Jorge Ramos, and the king
of soccer himself, Pelé. His translations of contemporary Latin
American literature by Alberto Fuguet, Eloy Urroz, and others have
been praised by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New
Yorker, and The Believer, among other publications. Fitz has been
awarded grants from the Mexican National Fund for Culture and Arts
(FONCA). He was a 2010 Resident at the Banff International Literary
Translation Centre and a 2019 Peter Taylor Fellow with the Kenyon
Review Literary Translation Workshop. He lives with his wife and
children in Spring Hill, Tennessee.
Praise for The Life and Death of a Minke Whale in the
Amazon
A Book Riot “Must-Read Book in Translation for 2022”“Zuker combines
hard-hitting reportage with stories that veer from hopeful to
elegiac, and his takes on his subjects’ relationship with the
rainforest are spot-on and direct . . . This one deserves wide
readership.”—Publishers Weekly“Thanks to Zuker’s essays, neglected
voices from a remote part of the world receive much-needed
attention . . . Recommended for anyone seeking to better understand
the often overlooked world of Indigenous Amazonians.”—Kirkus
Reviews"In poignant, lyrical, even fable-like essays written
primarily from the perspectives of Indigenous people, Brazilian
journalist Zuker chronicles the destruction of the Amazon
rainforest . . . Zuker presents an in-depth depiction of massive
environmental and social decimation conveying urgently needed
information and insights."—Booklist“With Zuker, the language, the
thoughtful observation, and the work of witnessing this profound
time of alteration never falters. In his prose, in his conclusions,
and with his keen eye, he allows us to know him in the areas of his
expertise, and in the areas of his displacement and wandering.
While he does not over-identify with the people he documents,
neither does he set himself apart from the world in which they find
themselves.” —Eiren Caffall, Los Angeles Review of Books
"These are astute and vivid dispatches from a part of the world,
and a viewpoint that most Americans know far too little about—and
that plays an absolutely critical role in the planet's
future." —Bill McKibben, author of The Flag, The Cross, and
the Station Wagon“This unique view of Brazil’s precious, precarious
rain forest shimmers with passion and an intimate understanding of
‘the friction between two worlds, between two ways of relating to
the land.’”—Foreword Reviews“Zuker’s book is a conscientious
curation of stories about resistance, resilience, and
self-determination against the odds that populist politics and mass
consumerism pose to fragile environments and ways of life.”—Sage
Cigarettes Blog"In this collection of linked essays, Fábio Zuker
gathers together the voices of those long left out of the official
conversations around what the Amazon was, is, and ought to be. By
listening to ordinary people and recounting their tales, he invites
us to eavesdrop on an extraordinary conversation unfolding between
this place and those who call it home." —Elizabeth Rush,
author of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore"This
collection of essays by Fábio Zuker is essential reading for anyone
who wants to understand the challenges and dangers facing the
Amazon region and its Indigenous peoples. Zuker has the infallibly
keen eye of a world-class journalist. His prose flows like water
from one chapter to the next as he tracks harsh realities, like the
death of a river, beside the wonderful astonishment of finding a
whale in the most unexpected of places. If you get caught in his
net, you won't regret it." —Jorge Ramos, author of Stranger:
The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era"Heartbreaking
and necessary, these essays embody the struggles of Indigenous
peoples respecting their past and fighting for their present, while
exploring the long-reaching and deadly impacts that greed—and the
forces of evil that supply greed—have on the world and on people in
Brazil in particular." —BrocheAroe Fabian, River Dog Book
Co. “In the midst of this crossfire that’s ravaging the
forest, with a far-right government churning out more fake news
every minute and manipulating the truth about the burning Amazon
rainforest, it’s essential to highlight the ethical concern that
permeates the writing of these essays: writing that isn’t about
something or with something, but is, as the Vietnamese filmmaker
and thinker Trinh T. Minh-ha puts it, near to it.”—Le Monde
Diplomatique-Brasil
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