Through the ARC of the Rain Forest ANNOTATION
As this engrossing multi-generational novel follows the attempt of an idealistic band of immigrants to create a utopia in the jungle, it also uncovers the little-known history of the large Japanese-Brazilian community. This much anticipated work comes from an author whose award-winning first novel, Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, brought her acclaimed reviews.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
When the United States closed its doors to Japanese immigrants, hundreds of thousands of them made their way to the coffee plantations and the then-open spaces of Brazil. In this engrossing multigenerational novel, award-winning author Karen Tei Yamashita tells the story of one idealistic band of these immigrants, who arrive in 1925 on a ship named the Brazil-Maru and set out to carve a utopia out of the jungle. Led by the charismatic Kantaro Uno, the pioneers create a civilization built around his passions for baseball, painting, chickens, and their own socialist sentiments. They endure struggles in clearing the land, maintaining their identity, adapting to a new world, and fighting the backlash caused by World War II. Inevitably, however, the turbulent course Kantaro has set leads the community called Esperanca in a direction no one could have predicted. Told through the eyes of five characters covering three generations of Esperanca's history, Brazil-Maru explores themes that resonate with the reality of all immigrant history: the dream of creating a new world, the cost of idealism, the symbiotic tie between a people and the land they settle, and the changes demanded by the appearance of a new generation.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Yamashita offers an enriching fictionalization of the settling of the northwestern corner of Brazil by socialist Japanese Christians. (Sept.)
Library Journal
This expansive and ambitious novel attempts, fairly successfully, to weave an immediate concern for the environment with an incredible and complicated story. The setting is the Brazilian jungle, and the cast of characters could people a circus: a middle-aged Japanese man with a golf ball-sized sphere buzzing in front of his forehead, a three-armed executive from New York, an old man who founds the ``science'' of featherology, and a boy who is believed to be an angel--to name just a few. These characters converge, each with a separate mission, on the unique ``natural'' phenomenon known as the Matacao, a huge flat plastic plain in the middle of the jungle. Boundless greed and the unthinking destruction of our environment are as much a part of the story as the delicate relations among the characters. Although the clever parodies of modern society (from yuppies to New Age spiritualism to animal rights groups) are a bit heavy-handed, and at times the plot bogs down in its own intricacies, this is ultimately enjoyable reading.-- Jessica Grim, Univ. of California at Berkeley Lib.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
"Yamashita has given us a migling of aspects, facet, and points of view that...reveal the complex pitch of Brazillian culture...Inspiring satirical piece of writing." — Gregory Radassa
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