The Final Whalers: Three Years within the Far Pacific with a Brave Tribe and a Vanishing Method of Life

A New York Occasions Notable Guide​
A New York Occasions Editors’ Alternative
Winner of Lowell Thomas Journey Guide Award Silver Medal
Finalist for William Saroyan Worldwide Writing Prize
Longlisted for Mountbatten Award for Finest Guide

Telegraph Finest Journey Books of the 12 months
Hampshire Gazette Finest Books of 2019

One of many favourite books of Yuval Noah Harari, writer of the basic bestseller Sapiens, “with reference to humanity’s place on the planet.” (by way of Airmail)

On a volcanic island within the Savu Sea so distant that different Indonesians name it “The Land Left Behind” reside the Lamalerans: a tribe of 1,500 hunter-gatherers who’re the world’s final subsistence whalers. They’ve survived for half a millennium by searching whales with bamboo harpoons and handmade wood boats powered by sails of woven palm fronds. However now, underneath assault from the rapacious forces of the trendy period and a world financial system, their lifestyle teeters on the point of collapse.

Award-winning journalist Doug Bock Clark, one in all a handful of Westerners who communicate the Lamaleran language, lived with the tribe throughout three years, and he brings their world and their individuals to vivid life on this gripping story of a vanishing tradition. Jon, an orphaned apprentice whaler, toils to earn his harpoon and supply for his ailing grandparents, whereas Ika, his indomitable youthful sister, is raring to forge a life unconstrained by custom, and to comprehend a star-crossed love. Frans, an growing older shaman, tries to unite the tribe with a view to undo a lethal curse. And Ignatius, a legendary harpooner getting into retirement, labors handy down the Methods of the Ancestors to his son, Ben, who would secretly moderately change into a DJ within the distant vacationer mecca of Bali.

Deeply empathetic and richly reported,
The Final Whalers is a riveting, highly effective chronicle of the collision between one of many planet’s dwindling indigenous peoples and the irresistible enticements and upheavals of a quickly reworking world.