Overview
As much personal journal as investigative journalism, this account traces the worsening developments at Fukushima Daiichi during the first year following the nuclear disaster. Often poetic in tone and philosophic in scope, this day-to-day reportage is peppered with the author’s reflections and dramatic monologues as she investigates the public’s willing blindness toward the nuclear power industry’s disregard for public safety in the pursuit of profit. The book offers a unique perspective and attempts to come to terms with Fukushima’s catastrophic consequences on the planet.Reviews
"A revelation and a searing denunciation of the worldwide nuclear energy industry. . . . Contains everything you always wanted to know about Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and nuclear energy in general but were afraid to ask. It is a work of a conscience truly in touch with, and deeply concerned about, humanity." —John Nichols, author, The Milagro Beanfield War
"A book to savor slowly and/or stay up all night reading, a book to quote, share with friends, and tuck into a time capsule for future beings who wonder whatever happened here." —Barbara George, founder, Women's Energy Matters
"Unfolding through a series of beguiling, passionate and often revelatory entries in a daily chronicle, at times with a flair for scintillating satire, Pineda's masterful framing of the urgency for readers to learn from the Japanese nuclear disaster and the machinations of its industry handlers makes Devil's Tango one of the most important and required reads this year. . . . In the end, with an unremittingly courageous if not prophetic voice, Pineda's day-to-day exposé transcends the ruts of most energy debates to raise these larger questions about one of the seminal crises of our times." —www.HuffingtonPost.com
"Devil's Tango provides ample evidence that the Fukushima disaster was caused primarily by the earthquake of March 11, 2011. The tsunami that followed made things worse. But the atomic reactors there and around the world remain far more vulnerable to seismic shocks than their builders want us to know." —www.CounterPunch.org
"In Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step Cecile Pineda has delivered a poetic, profound meditation on the slowly unfolding death of the natural world by man-made radiation. She's not the only one who sees it, but she's in a very small group of people currently alive on the planet who are able to face annihilation without blinking." —www.Went2TheBridge.blogspot.comAuthor Biography
Cecile Pineda is the author of several novels, including Face, Fishlight: A Dream of Childhood, and Love Queen of the Amazon. She is the recipient of the Californian Commonwealth Club’s Gold Medal, the Sue Kaufman Prize, and a National Book Award nomination. She lives in Berkeley, California.