Read more
Zusatztext As beautiful as summer! as unforgettable as heartbreak . . . [A] luminous performance. (Junot Diaz! author of Drawn ) Informationen zum Autor Jessica Hagedorn is the author of the novels Dogeaters and The Gangster of Love , Dream Jungle , and a collection of poetry and short fiction, Danger and Beauty . Klappentext Jessica Hagedorn has received wide critical acclaim for her edgy, high-energy novels chronicling the clash and embrace of American and Filipino cultures. With Dream Jungle, she achieves a new level of narrative daring. Set in a Philippines of desperate beauty and rank corruption, Dream Jungle feverishly traces the consequences of two seemingly unrelated events: the discovery of an alleged "lost tribe" and the arrival of a celebrity-studded American film crew filming an epic Vietnam War movie. Caught in the turmoil unleashed by these two incidents are four unforgettable characters-a wealthy, iconoclastic playboy, a woman ensnared in the sex industry, a Filipino-American writer, and a jaded actor-who find themselves drawn irrevocably together in this lavish, sensual portrait of a nation in crisis. Zamora: 1971 How to explain that moment when Zamora López de Legazpi first laid eyes on them? Zamora’s gaze was steadfast and shameless. O they were beautiful, powerful, strange! Their fierce, wary eyes scrutinized him in return, taking in the brown, unruly curls on his head, the scraggly beard of his pale, unshaven face, the muscular arms and small, compact body that was, surprisingly, no taller than theirs. He had walked into a dream. Someone else’s dream—perhaps Duan’s—but now stolen and claimed by Zamora. The landscape of that dream—vast, ominous, shimmering blues and greens—was simply part of the loot. The Himal people were not unfriendly; they could easily have killed him. One man demanded a cigarette, pointing to the Salems in Zamora’s jean jacket. Zamora gave him the entire pack. Another pointed to the ornate collar of brass, glass beads, and bone hanging from his wife’s neck, hoping Zamora would buy it. Zamora grinned and shook his head. Duan berated the man, who was crestfallen and backed away. The man’s wife fingered her precious necklace, relieved not to have to part with it. Others offered wads of flat green leaves to Zamora as a test, a gift. Zamora crammed the rolled-up leaves into his mouth, chewing and spitting as he saw the old women around him chewing and spitting. His tongue and lips became numb, but his other senses grew more acute. It was almost unbearable. Everything he saw and heard filled him with love. The tips of his fingers tingled. His eyes were wet with tears. Children hid behind the long, dazzling skirts of their mothers, stealing glances at the hairy stranger. The old women of the tribe were the only ones who acted indifferent. Squatting comfortably on bony haunches, they turned their brown, haughty faces toward the heat of the sun, away from where Zamora stood with a goofy smile. The old women smelled trouble; they were disgusted with Duan for bringing the hairy Spaniard to them. The old women spit at the dirt and muttered curses under their breath, hoping to drive the stranger away. Tiny bells jangled on their brass anklets as the splayed toes of their cracked, bare feet burrowed into the hard, red earth. Zamora López de Legazpi had been traveling for days to Lake Ramayyah. The lake, once filled with crocodiles and considered sacred by the Himal people, was located in Cotabato del Sur, the southernmost tip of the Philippine archipelago. It was Duan’s home, approximately 550 miles from Manila, as far from Zamora’s mansions, cars, polo horses, and beauty queens as anyone could imagine. Zamora had traveled first by helicopter, then by jeep, then on foot. He was led by Duan into the heart of a remote Himal village at the base of Mount Taobo, a grand, forbidding mountain. In the Himal langu...
