Life Is Not Useful
Ailton Krenak author Jamille Pinheiro Dias translator Alex Brostoff translator Natalia Brizuela editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Published:10th Mar '23
Should be back in stock very soon
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£40.00(9781509554041)
Indigenous leader and activist Ailton Krenak reminds us that we must awaken from the comatose senselessness we have been immersed in since the beginning of the modern colonial project, where order, progress, development, consumerism, and capitalism have taken over our entire existence, leaving us only very partially alive, and, in fact, almost dead. To awaken from the coma of modernity is, for Krenak, to awaken to the possibility of becoming attuned to “the cosmic sense of life.” He points out that the COVID-19 pandemic affects all so-called “human” lives and that the time is ripe for us all to reflect on and undo the exclusivity and distinction that have characterized the concept of humanity throughout Western modernity.
Selected by Mongabay as one of 10 notable books on conservation and the environment published in 2023
“As Krenak contemplates the COVID-19 pandemic in the pithy Life Is Not Useful, he advocates powerfully for a shift away from the way life was before. As he sees it, humans’ detachment from nature and our obsession with extracting profits from the Earth have led to the crises we are facing today. Instead, he puts forth a vision that embraces the interconnected reliance on all life that shares this planet.”
Mongabay
Emanuele Coccia, author of Metamorphoses
“A stinging critique of Western thought.”
Earthbound Report
“Krenak makes a potent anarchist statement, often with simple, sardonic humour … and his solutions are no less radical.”
Latin American Review of Books
“[A] thought-provoking critique of the individual and the prevailing global political-economic-social system. With his humorous sensitivity, Krenak invites us to reflect on the essence of life, which goes beyond the limited definition assigned to it.”
International Journal of Environmental Studies
ISBN: 9781509554058
Dimensions: 213mm x 135mm x 8mm
Weight: 113g
96 pages