Everyone Comes from Belterra: When America Owned the Amazon, by Deji Olukotun
Fiction, 320 pages.
Release date: August/September 2008.
It is 1930s Brazil. Stephen Tanner is dispatched by the Ford Motor Company to run its most ambitious project: to supply America with rubber in the event of global war. Estranged from his fiancée, the dashing Tanner rules a region of the Amazon jungle with an iron fist. But when a new discovery sets his town ablaze with greed, Tanner must scramble to save Belterra – and his life.
Nearby, Rogério Teber, a hardened, solitary rubber tapper, ekes out a meager existence by spying for the American management. While Tanner entertains his expatriate staff and plays lunchtime tennis, Rogério taps rubber in the early mornings and keeps an eye out for trouble. The pounding of drums awakens him one night and he witnesses a ritualistic murder that shocks him to his core.
These two men are drawn into a shadowy forest world teeming with cutthroats, lost warriors, hidden passions, and betrayal behind every leaf. And they soon learn that no man can escape – because everyone comes from Belterra.
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