First published 2024
Nemonte Nenquimo grows up in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, learning plant medicines and shamanism from Waorani elders. At fourteen, she leaves for the city to study with evangelical missionaries. Her ancestors visit her dreams, urging her to return home and reclaim her culture. She listens to their call. Back in the forest, Nemonte transforms into a fierce climate activist. She builds alliances across indigenous nations throughout the Upper Amazon. Her leadership drives a historic legal victory against oil companies, saving over half a million acres of primary rainforest. Nemonte partners with her husband Mitch Anderson to tell this story, drawing from generations of oral history. Together they challenge centuries of conquest and racist assumptions about indigenous peoples. Her message cuts as sharp as ancestral spears through battles against loggers, miners, and oil executives. This memoir reveals a life as rich and vital as the rainforest itself.
Genres: memoir, biography-memoir, environmental-science, climate-change, activism
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: activism, coming-of-age, found-family
Setting: Amazon, Ecuador
Period: 21st-century
368 pages · Hardcover · Wildfire