Just one month after his 21st birthday, Peter Rudiak-Gould moved to Ujae, a remote atoll in the Marshall Islands located 70 miles from the nearest telephone, car, store, or tourist, and 2,000 miles from the closest continent. He spent the next year there, living among its 450 inhabitants and teaching English to its schoolchildren.
Surviving Paradise is a thoughtful and laugh-out-loud hilarious documentation of Rudiak-Gould’s efforts to cope with daily life on Ujae as his idealistic expectations of a tropical paradise confront harsh reality. but Rudiak-Gould goes beyond the personal, interweaving his own story with fascinating political, linguistic, and ecological digressions about the Marshall Islands. most poignant are his observations of the noticeable effect of global warming on these tiny, low-lying islands and the threat rising water levels pose to their already precarious existence.
An Eat, Pray, Love as written by Paul Theroux, Surviving Paradise is a disarmingly lighthearted narrative with a substantive emotional undercurrent.
"[A]n extraordinarily engaging diary-portrait of a 21st-century castaway uncovering the everyday riches, enduring frustrations, and confounding contradictions of life in a South Pacific paradise." --Dan George in National Geographic Traveler
“[U]tterly unexpected, vivid, [and] blessedly funny.”—Ernest Callenbach, author of bestseller *Ecotopia and *Publisher’s Lunch
“In Surviving Paradise, Peter Rudiak-Gould has pulled off the improbable: turning a year spent on a remote Pacific island the size of a shopping mall into a memorable, moving narrative.”—Tony Cohan, author of On Mexican Time and *Mexican Days*
**
“In Surviving Paradise, Peter Rudiak-Gould transcends and defies every travel-memoir cliché (i.e. ‘I went there to save them, but it was they who saved me’), reinventing the notion of what travel writing can accomplish. Without ever resorting to an expected thought, he turns his anthropologist's eye to his year on Ujae with humor, sensitivity, intelligence, warmth, and wit. In transporting us to this tiny island, he ultimately casts a surprising light on human nature and the ways we inhabit and perceive the world around us. From his rollicking adventures in spear fishing to his efforts to master the Marshallese language, Rudiak-Gold has written a dynamic narrative of personal and global transformation that's a joy from departure to arrival.”—Liza Monroy, author of *Mexican High***
**
“With an eye for humor that is fresh and surprising, Peter Rudiak-Gould lays out the delightful ironies—and the vexing conundrums—of life in a traditional culture on the brink of change. His voice has that rare quality of a starry-eyed romantic who has gained wisdom and perspective by immersing himself in the unfamiliar. His tales from the edge of the world are at times deeply moving, quite often stunningly insightful, and consistently hilarious. I found myself grinning by page two.” —Sarah Erdman, author of *Nine Hills to Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village*
**
“There's magic at work here. Not until late in the book—well after he has seduced you with his humor, poetic prose, and elegant observations about life on a drowning tropical island—do you realize that the window Rudiak-Gould has been holding open and allowing you to peek through is not actually a window, but a brilliantly-disguised mirror.”—Brad Newsham, author of *Take Me With You: A Round-the-World Journey to Invite a Stranger Home*
**
“At once a travel narrative, a personal memoir, and an anthropological excursion, Surviving Paradise is also an utterly charming, often very funny account of a young man's surreal immersion in a relatively traditional Pacific culture. I recommend it heartily!”—**Lawrence Millman, author of Last Places
**
“In this surprising and funny memoir, Peter Rudiak-Gould falls in love with his fantasy of the tiny Micronesian paradise where he is assigned to teach English, then runs headlong into the realities of isolation, cultural difference, and global warming. Surviving Paradise is a gentle, witty reminder that we live on an entirely unpredictable planet.”—Dinty W. Moore, author of *Between Panic and Desire*
“Fresh out of college, Peter Rudiak-Gould went looking for the biggest adventure in the most faraway place he could imagine. His boyish enchantment with mystery itself matured into a thoughtful appreciation of the people he came to know on a primitive island. The resulting memoir is sensitive, funny and true.” —Sharon Dirlam, author of *Beyond Siberia: Two Years in a Forgotten Place*
Description:
Just one month after his 21st birthday, Peter Rudiak-Gould moved to Ujae, a remote atoll in the Marshall Islands located 70 miles from the nearest telephone, car, store, or tourist, and 2,000 miles from the closest continent. He spent the next year there, living among its 450 inhabitants and teaching English to its schoolchildren.
Surviving Paradise is a thoughtful and laugh-out-loud hilarious documentation of Rudiak-Gould’s efforts to cope with daily life on Ujae as his idealistic expectations of a tropical paradise confront harsh reality. but Rudiak-Gould goes beyond the personal, interweaving his own story with fascinating political, linguistic, and ecological digressions about the Marshall Islands. most poignant are his observations of the noticeable effect of global warming on these tiny, low-lying islands and the threat rising water levels pose to their already precarious existence.
An Eat, Pray, Love as written by Paul Theroux, Surviving Paradise is a disarmingly lighthearted narrative with a substantive emotional undercurrent.
From Publishers Weekly
Thousands of miles from home and in a culture equally distant from his own, Rudiak-Gould's first night on the island of Ujae made him lonely to the point of physical pain. Yet after only a few weeks in the farthest outreaches of the Marshall Islands, the author overcame boredom almost immediately, bringing the reader along on an equally gripping journey of one year in one of the most remote, fascinating places on Earth. Rudiak-Gould, a volunteer English teacher, came to Ujae knowing little about the Marshallese language and even less about its culture. Yet as he became more familiar with his surroundings and the native tongue, he found a community that eventually saw him as one of their own. Nearly every aspect of Ujae is dissected, from its horrific educational standards to the drastic differences in their respective social systems and the eclectic array of Marshallese food (Rudiak-Gould describes one dish as liquid flatulence). Rudiak-Gould also lets the reader in on his own personal struggles in dealing with children (and their parents) in a place where corporal punishment is encouraged. At the same time, he becomes adept at Marshallese activities like spearfishing, allowing him to contribute to a culture based on survival. Alternatively hilarious, emotional and thought provoking (Rudiak-Gould analyzes the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming on the low-lying area), the book is an eye-opening look into a beautiful yet harsh paradise far from the reaches of tourism. (Nov.)
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Review
"[A]n extraordinarily engaging diary-portrait of a 21st-century castaway uncovering the everyday riches, enduring frustrations, and confounding contradictions of life in a South Pacific paradise." --Dan George in National Geographic Traveler
“[U]tterly unexpected, vivid, [and] blessedly funny.”—Ernest Callenbach, author of bestseller *Ecotopia and *Publisher’s Lunch
“In Surviving Paradise, Peter Rudiak-Gould has pulled off the improbable: turning a year spent on a remote Pacific island the size of a shopping mall into a memorable, moving narrative.”—Tony Cohan, author of On Mexican Time and *Mexican Days*
**
“In Surviving Paradise, Peter Rudiak-Gould transcends and defies every travel-memoir cliché (i.e. ‘I went there to save them, but it was they who saved me’), reinventing the notion of what travel writing can accomplish. Without ever resorting to an expected thought, he turns his anthropologist's eye to his year on Ujae with humor, sensitivity, intelligence, warmth, and wit. In transporting us to this tiny island, he ultimately casts a surprising light on human nature and the ways we inhabit and perceive the world around us. From his rollicking adventures in spear fishing to his efforts to master the Marshallese language, Rudiak-Gold has written a dynamic narrative of personal and global transformation that's a joy from departure to arrival.”—Liza Monroy, author of *Mexican High***
**
“With an eye for humor that is fresh and surprising, Peter Rudiak-Gould lays out the delightful ironies—and the vexing conundrums—of life in a traditional culture on the brink of change. His voice has that rare quality of a starry-eyed romantic who has gained wisdom and perspective by immersing himself in the unfamiliar. His tales from the edge of the world are at times deeply moving, quite often stunningly insightful, and consistently hilarious. I found myself grinning by page two.” —Sarah Erdman, author of *Nine Hills to Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village*
**
“There's magic at work here. Not until late in the book—well after he has seduced you with his humor, poetic prose, and elegant observations about life on a drowning tropical island—do you realize that the window Rudiak-Gould has been holding open and allowing you to peek through is not actually a window, but a brilliantly-disguised mirror.”—Brad Newsham, author of *Take Me With You: A Round-the-World Journey to Invite a Stranger Home*
**
“At once a travel narrative, a personal memoir, and an anthropological excursion, Surviving Paradise is also an utterly charming, often very funny account of a young man's surreal immersion in a relatively traditional Pacific culture. I recommend it heartily!”—**Lawrence Millman, author of Last Places
**
“In this surprising and funny memoir, Peter Rudiak-Gould falls in love with his fantasy of the tiny Micronesian paradise where he is assigned to teach English, then runs headlong into the realities of isolation, cultural difference, and global warming. Surviving Paradise is a gentle, witty reminder that we live on an entirely unpredictable planet.”—Dinty W. Moore, author of *Between Panic and Desire*
“Fresh out of college, Peter Rudiak-Gould went looking for the biggest adventure in the most faraway place he could imagine. His boyish enchantment with mystery itself matured into a thoughtful appreciation of the people he came to know on a primitive island. The resulting memoir is sensitive, funny and true.” —Sharon Dirlam, author of *Beyond Siberia: Two Years in a Forgotten Place*
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