Staff Pick
A genre mish-mash featuring satire, ecocrit, neocolonialism, and magic realism among others, Through the Arc of the Rainforest is a hilarious, tragic, and wildly hopeful cli-fi fable. Loosely based on a Brazilian soap opera format, Tei's powerhouse debut mocks Henry Ford's "Fordlandia," a themed park poised to be built on 2.5 million acres of Amazon rainforest in 1927. Oh, also it's told from the perspective of a hovering, extraterrestrial, self-conscious ball. Utterly unique. Recommended By SitaraG, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Fluid and poetic as well as terrifying. --New York Times Book Review
Dazzling . . . a seamless mixture of magic realism, satire and futuristic fiction. --San Francisco Chronicle
Impressive . . . a flight of fancy through a dreamlike Brazil. --Village Voice
Surreal and misty, sweeping from one high-voltage scene to another. --LA Weekly
Amuses and frightens at the same time. --Newsday
Incisive and funny, this book yanks our chains and makes us see the absurdity that rules our world. --Booklist (starred review)
Expansive and ambitious . . . incredible and complicated. --Library Journal
This satiric morality play about the destruction of the Amazon rain forest unfolds with a diversity and fecundity equal to its setting. . . . Yamashita seems to have thrown into the pot everything she knows and most that she can imagine--all to good effect. --Publishers Weekly
A Japanese man with a ball floating six inches in front of his head, an American CEO with three arms, and a Brazilian peasant who discovers the art of healing by tickling one's earlobe, rise 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.
Karen Tei Yamashita is the author of Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Brazil-Maru, Tropic of Orange, Circle K Cycles, I Hotel, and Anime Wong, all published by Coffee House Press. I Hotel was selected as a finalist for the National Book Award and awarded the California Book Award, the American Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Award, and the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award.
Synopsis
A FREEWHEELING BLACK COMEDY BOUND UP IN CULTURAL CONFUSION, POLITICAL INSANITY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE.
A Japanese man with a ball floating six inches in front of his head, an American ceo with three arms, and a Brazilian peasant who discovers the art of healing by tickling one's earlobe rise 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
A freewheeling black comedy bound up in cultural confusion, political insanity, and environmental catastrophe.