‘A first-class work of reporting [and] a work of compassion for Indigenous peoples everywhere’ BENJAMIN MOSER, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of SONTAG
‘A non-fiction novel of modern conquest, capitalism and murder . . . a stunning work’ GREG GRANDIN, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of FORDLANDIA
Growing up in a remote corner of the Amazon, Pio, Maria, and Oita learned to hunt wild pigs and tapirs, gathering Brazil nuts and açaí berries from centuries-old trees. Then the first highway pierced through. Loggers and prospectors invaded, and they lost their families to terrible new weapons and diseases. Pushed to assimilate, they struggled to understand their new, capitalist reality. They ended up forging an uneasy symbiosis with their white antagonists – until a seam of diamonds erupted in their territory and decades of suppressed trauma burst out in a shocking act of retribution.
Based on six years of immersive reporting and research, WHEN WE SOLD GOD’S EYE tells a unique kind of adventure story, a story of survival against all odds; of the temptations of wealth and the dream of prosperity; of a vital ecosystem threatened by the hunger for natural resources; of genocide and revenge. It’s a story as old as the first European encounters with Indigenous people, playing out in the present day. But most of all, it’s about a few startlingly clever individuals and their power to adapt – even thrive – in the most unlikely circumstances.
‘A non-fiction novel of modern conquest, capitalism and murder . . . a stunning work’ GREG GRANDIN, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of FORDLANDIA
Growing up in a remote corner of the Amazon, Pio, Maria, and Oita learned to hunt wild pigs and tapirs, gathering Brazil nuts and açaí berries from centuries-old trees. Then the first highway pierced through. Loggers and prospectors invaded, and they lost their families to terrible new weapons and diseases. Pushed to assimilate, they struggled to understand their new, capitalist reality. They ended up forging an uneasy symbiosis with their white antagonists – until a seam of diamonds erupted in their territory and decades of suppressed trauma burst out in a shocking act of retribution.
Based on six years of immersive reporting and research, WHEN WE SOLD GOD’S EYE tells a unique kind of adventure story, a story of survival against all odds; of the temptations of wealth and the dream of prosperity; of a vital ecosystem threatened by the hunger for natural resources; of genocide and revenge. It’s a story as old as the first European encounters with Indigenous people, playing out in the present day. But most of all, it’s about a few startlingly clever individuals and their power to adapt – even thrive – in the most unlikely circumstances.
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Reviews
This book reads like a wondrous combination of Heart of Darkness and In Cold Blood, a nonfiction novel of modern conquest, capitalism, and murder. Cuadros writes with unsentimental compassion and unflinching moral clarity, investing his protagonists with human complexity while still reckoning with the broader social forces driving the destruction of the Amazon. A stunning work
Truly remarkable reporting, opening a window into one of the planet's most important places, and the people who live out their lives amidst its riches. It will complicate your view of the world, which is usually a useful thing
WHEN WE SOLD GOD'S EYE raises the biggest questions of our time and, much to its credit, offers no easy answers. Like the Amazon itself, it is rich, fascinating, and totally alive
Penetrating and wise; this book lit up a part of life that I'd known nothing about
To the shelf of anthropological classics that includes Gregory Bateson's Naven, Levi Strauss's Tristes Tropiques, and Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa, we can now add Alex Cuadros's When We Sold God's Eye. Cuadros takes us into one of the most forbidding regions of the globe, and inside the minds of an ancient people as they take their first - diseased, bloodstained - steps into so-called civilization. A first-class work of reporting, this book is above all a work of compassion for Indigenous peoples everywhere, forced to navigate a nearly impossible passage
A remarkable feat of research embedded in vivid and compelling prose . . . Bursting with wild, chaotic clashes of human values and exposing profound greed, corruption, violence, courage, survival, and the everyday contradictions within us all, WHEN WE SOLD GOD'S EYE offers us new levels of understanding of Western society's relationship to our earth and to cultures vastly different from our own. A must read, simultaneously heartbreaking and heart-filling
An essential story, built on deep and empathetic reportage. A hugely impressive piece of work
An extraordinary work of narrative nonfiction, telling the gripping and astonishing story of how a small group in the Amazon, invaded and brutally treated by white settlers and miners, ended up exploiting an illicit diamond mine themselves. This is a complex and tragic story, deeply reported and beautifully written - a remarkable literary achievement
In the annals of destruction of the world's wildernesses and their indigenous peoples, WHEN WE SOLD GOD'S EYE deserves widespread attention, and seems destined to become a modern classic of literary nonfiction
Alex Cuadros spent years culturally embedded with the Cinta Larga, and tells their tragic but exciting story. He achieves the remarkable feat of understanding and sympathizing with both sides' attitudes, cultures, and motives, with a vibrant cast of real people