Overview

"A confrontation with the destruction of the Amazon by a writer who moved her life into the heart of the forest. In lyrical, impassioned prose, Eliane Brum recounts her move from Sao Paulo to Altamira, a city along the Xingu River that has been devastated by the construction of one of the largest dams in the world. In community with the human and more-than-human world of the Amazon, Brum seeks to ""reforest"" herself while building relationships with forest peoples who carry both the scars and the resistance of the forest in their bodies. Weaving together the lived stories of the region and its history of violent corruption and destruction, Banzeiro Okoto is a call for radical change, for the creation of a new kind of human being capable of facing the potential extinction of our species. In it, Brum reveals the direct links between structural inequities rooted in gender, race, class, and even species, and the suffering that capitalism and climate breakdown wreak on those who are least responsible for them. The title Banzeiro Òkòtó features words from two cultural and linguistic traditions: banzeiro is what the Amazon people call the place where the river turns into a fearsome vortex, and Òkòtó is the Yoruba word for a shell that spirals outward into infinity. Like the Xingu River, turning as it flows, this book is a fierce document of transformation arguing for the centrality of the Amazon to all our lives. 'The Amazon to all our lives. Elaine Brum’s book is an instant classic.’ – Antonio Nobre, scientist & amazon activist ‘I never tire of saying how great Eliane Brum is.’ – Juma Xipaia, indigenous leader, in attendance at Cop26 ‘Eliane calls the Amazon region the center of the world. In her opinion, this is a political rather than a geographical stance, since this territory is of vast importance to the rest of the world.’ – Marie Claire ‘Reading Banzeiro Òkòtó is a way of forging alliances on behalf of human and nonhuman lives, a vital resource as we confront the grim momentum of destruction.’ – Sul 2"

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9781911648611

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Reviews

Eliane Brum: 'The fight for the Amazon is the fight against our extinction' https://revistamarieclaire.globo.com/Cultura/noticia/2021/12/eliane-brum-luta-pela-amazonia-e-luta-contra-nossa-extincao.html -- Humberto Toze * Marie Claire (Brazil) * Banzeiro Òkòtó: a breathtaking experience (APPOA Column) https://sul21.com.br/opiniao/2022/02/banzeiro-okoto-uma-experiencia-arrebatadora-coluna-da-appoa/ * Sul21 * This year, I only needed to open my window in Brazil to witness the climate crisis ‘My snapshot of 2022 shows the Amazon burning – but what it doesn’t communicate is the pain’ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/29/this-year-i-only-needed-to-open-my-window-in-brazil-to-witness-the-climate-crisis -- Eliane Brum * The Guardian * 5 – Star Review from Peter Whittaker ‘beyond reportage, beyond polemic; channelling the many voices’ https://newint.org/node/29987 -- Peter Whittaker * New Internationalist * A Manifesto for a New World, With the Amazon at Its Center “Banzeiro Òkòtó,” by Eliane Brum, considers the devastating impacts of mass deforestation on Brazil and its people. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/books/review/eliane-brum-banzeiro-okoto.html?smid=tw-share -- William Atkins * The New York Times * The Amazon’s History is Also That of Its Indigenous Residents Eliane Brum on Whiteness, Bodies in Different Languages, and a More Holistic Approach to Ecology https://lithub.com/the-amazons-history-is-also-that-of-its-indigenous-residents/ * Literary Hub * Living with the Xingu in deepest Amazonia The Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum moves from São Paulo to ‘reforest’ herself in the Amazon, and slowly gains the trust of a wary, isolated tribal people. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/living-with-the-xingu-in-deepest-amazonia/ -- Hugh Tomson * The Spectator * Journalism from the centre of the world https://sumauma.com/en/ * SUMAÚMA * April Edition https://emagazine.com/ * The Environment * One Journalist’s Dispatch From the Battle to Protect the Amazon Rainforest https://www.insidehook.com/article/books/new-book-banzeiro-okoto-preservation-amazon-rainforest * InsideHook *

Author Information

Eliane Brum is an award-winning Brazilian journalist, writer, and documentarist. Her work of nonfiction, The Collector of Leftover Souls, was longlisted for the National Book Award for translated literature. She is a columnist for the international section of El País among other European and US newspapers and magazines. She is a founder of Sumaúma: Journalism from the Centre of the World, a trilingual news platform based in Altamira, in the Amazon rainforest, where she lives. Her work as a journalist has won more than 40 prizes. Diane Whitty has translated over a dozen major books from the Portuguese, including The Collector of Leftover Souls by Eliane Brum. She spent twenty-three years in Brazil and now lives in Wisconsin with her husband.

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