Книга Banzeiro Òkòtó: The Amazon as the Centre of the World
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 São 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 Òkòtó 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.
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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
" - 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
" - The Guardian"
5 – Star Review from Peter Whittaker
‘beyond reportage, beyond polemic; channelling the many voices’
https://newint.org/node/29987
" - 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
" - 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/
" - 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