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How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea
by Don Kulick
An engaging, deeply perceptive, and brilliant interrogation of what it means to study a culture, A Death in the Rainforest takes readers into a world that endures in the face of massive changes, one that is on the verge of disappearing forever.
As a young anthropologist, Don Kulick went to the tiny village of Gapun in New Guinea to document the death of the native language, Tayap. He arrived knowing that you can't study a language without understanding the daily lives of the people who speak it: how they talk to their children, how they argue, how they gossip, how they joke. Over the course of thirty years, he returned again and again to document Tayap before it disappeared entirely, and he found himself inexorably drawn into their world, and implicated in their destiny. Kulick wanted to tell the story of Gapuners—one that went beyond the particulars and uses of their language—that took full stock of their vanishing culture. This book takes us inside the village as he came to know it, revealing what it is like to live in a difficult-to-get-to village of two hundred people, carved out like a cleft in the middle of a tropical rainforest. But A Death in the Rainforest is also an illuminating look at the impact of white society on the farthest reaches of the globe—and the story of why this anthropologist realized finally that he had to give up his study of this language and this village.
"This frank, passionate work will move readers interested in a thoughtful contemplation of culture and globalization." - Publishers Weekly
"In this captivating narrative, [Kulick] considers complex questions about race and power in anthropological research, the nature of relationships among very different people, and the challenges of living in such a demanding environment. Kulick's engrossing, thought-provoking, and transporting chronicle will be enjoyed by National Geographic fans and all readers interested in cultural investigations." - Booklist
"A sad and uplifting, ultimately poignant exploration of a tiny world within a bigger, harsher, and crushing world." - Kirkus Reviews
"A book not to be missed ... His funny, warm, and at times sad account of the changing way of life in Gapun makes for an informative and unforgettable read, and one that I wholeheartedly enjoyed." - Manhattan Book Review
"An epic narrative in crystalline prose of the poignant death of an ancient language and the enchanted universe it signified in a remote New Guinea village related by a gifted anthropologist who lived there on and off for 30 years as the ghost of a departed villager, sharing its communal virtues and a considerable measure of its suffering. A unique testament of global history as personal experience: you won't be able to put it down." - Marshall Sahlins, Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, The University of Chicago
"Kulick is funny, lyrical, sad, and always insightful and empathetic. It is a profoundly human story about a seemingly exotic and strange place that really isn't so strange at all." - Carl Hoffman, author of The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure
"A remarkable feat: a gripping narrative less about the anthropologist than about a people for whom life is always now. It is good to listen to them: they at once challenge conventional ideas about the poignancy of loss and face an irreversible future not of their making." - Marilyn Strathern, author of Before and After Gender
This information about A Death in the Rainforest was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Don Kulick is the author or editor of more than a dozen books on topics that range from the lives of transgender sex workers to the anthropology of fat. He has conducted extensive anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, Brazil, and Scandinavia. He is the recipient of numerous grants and honors, including an NEH Fellowship, an A. W. Mellon Foundation Guest Professorship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is currently Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology at Uppsala University in Sweden, where he directs the research program Engaging Vulnerability.
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