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eBook editions

Through the Arc of the Rain Forest

by Karen Tei Yamashita

Through the Arc of the Rain Forest Cover

ISBN13: 9780918273826
ISBN10: 091827382x
All Product Details

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Through the Arc of the Rain Forest is a burlesque of comic-strip adventures and apocalyptic portents that stretches familiar truths to their logical extreme in a future world that is just recognizable enough to be frightening. In the Author's Note," Karen Tei Yamashita writes that her book is like a Brazilian soap opera called a novela: "the novela's story is completely changeable according to the whims of the public psyche and approval, although most likely, the unhappy find happiness; the bad are punished; true love reigns; a popular actor is saved from death ... an idyll striking innocence, boundless nostalgia and terrible ruthlessness." The stage is a vast, mysterious field of impenetrable plastic in the Brazilian rain forest set against a backdrop of rampant environmental destruction, commercialization, poverty, and religious rapture. Through the Arc of the Rainforest is narrated by a small satellite hovering permanently around the head of an innocent character named Kazumasa. Through no fault of his own, Kazumasa seems to draw strange and significant people into his orbit and to find himself at the center of cataclysmic events that involve carrier pigeons, religious pilgrims, industrial espionage, magic feathers, big money, miracles, epidemics, true love, and the virtual end of the world. This book is simultaneously entertaining and depressing, with all the rollicking pessimism you'd expect of a good soap opera or a good political satire."- Kirsten Backstrom, 500 Great Books by Women

Synopsis:

Fiction. This freewheeling black comedy features a bizarre cast of characters, including a Japanese man with a ball floating six inches in front of his head, and American CEO with three arms, and a Brazilian peasant who discovers the art of healing by tickling one's earlobe with a feather. By the end of this hilarious tale, they have risen to the heights of wealth and fame, before arriving at disasters - both personal and ecological - that destroy the rain forest and all the birds of Brazil.

Synopsis:

In the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, five characters converge on a magical Brazilian plain in the heart of the rain forest. Their fates are entwined with this phenomenal expanse, which transforms their lives, raising them to the heights of wealth and fame, before carrying them to the brink of disaster.

About the Author

Heralded as a "big talent" by the Los Angeles Times and praised by Newsday for "[wrestling] with profound philosophical and social issues" while delivering an "immensely entertaining story," Karen Yamashita is the recipient of an American Book Award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Award. A California native who has also lived in Brazil and Japan, she teaches at the University of California-Santa Cruz, where she received the Chancellor's Award for Diversity in 2009.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

kellie.schweich, September 20, 2006 (view all comments by kellie.schweich)
Through the Arc of the Rainforest is a very well written novel. Yamashita brings her bizarre cast of characters together in a small Brazilian town. There each one finds the joy of fame and learns the destruction that can follow. Through her comedic outlook and fantastical style Yamashita brings a new element to thinking globally about our impact on the environment.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780918273826
Author:
Yamashita, Karen Tei
Publisher:
Coffee House Press
Location:
Minneapolis :
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Rain forests
Subject:
Amazon River Region
Subject:
Rain forests -- Amazon River Region -- Fiction.
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Amazon River Region Fiction.
Subject:
Rain forests -- Fiction.
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Edition Description:
Trade Paper
Series Volume:
9312
Publication Date:
19900731
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
192
Dimensions:
8.5 x 5.4 x 0.5 in 10 oz

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Through the Arc of the Rain Forest New Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$15.95 In Stock
Product details 192 pages Coffee House Press - English 9780918273826 Reviews:
"Synopsis" by , Fiction. This freewheeling black comedy features a bizarre cast of characters, including a Japanese man with a ball floating six inches in front of his head, and American CEO with three arms, and a Brazilian peasant who discovers the art of healing by tickling one's earlobe with a feather. By the end of this hilarious tale, they have risen to the heights of wealth and fame, before arriving at disasters - both personal and ecological - that destroy the rain forest and all the birds of Brazil.
"Synopsis" by , In the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, five characters converge on a magical Brazilian plain in the heart of the rain forest. Their fates are entwined with this phenomenal expanse, which transforms their lives, raising them to the heights of wealth and fame, before carrying them to the brink of disaster.
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