The Life and Death of a Minke Whale in the Amazon: and Other Stories of the Brazilian Rainforest

Brazilian Journalist Zuker makes his English-language debut with a collection of harrowing dispatches from the Amazon. The essays cover Brazil’s response to Venezuelan immigration, the impacts of climate change on the region, and the stark effects of Covid-19 on Indigenous populations. “The Poison Fields” is a memorable profile of Mr. Manioc, a farmer who recalls a way of life that is quickly being lost to industrialized soybean production. “Anamã” is a look at how climate change has altered a town that has “already seen the hospital submerged and the local cemetery relocated twice,” and the title essay describes Piquiatuba villagers who came together to aid a beached whale that had gotten lost in the Amazon River: “Partially covered by mud and moss, first impressions suggested it was simply a decomposing tree trunk.” 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, as when he notes that the Amazon as a region “is so much discussed and yet so poorly understood.” This one deserves wide readership. (May)