East of Dreams

After her work in Alaska among the Gwich’in people, French anthropologist Nastassja Martin crossed the Bering Strait to continue her research on the effects of colonialism and climate change on indigenous communities, this time in the Russian far east. East of Dreams is Martin’s powerfully vibrant account of her seven years living with the Even people of Kamchatka, who were dispossessed of their reindeer herds and settled on collective farms in the Soviet era.

However, during the fall of the Soviet Union, one family, led by their matriarch Daria, decided to leave their enforced urban existences behind them and return to the Icha forest to lead a self-sufficient life based on hunting, fishing and gathering. How did this small collective, violated and despoiled by the colonists before being forgotten by history, reclaim its autonomy? How did they restore their relationships with animals and nature and learn to dream again?

Generous, lyrical, audacious,  East of Dreams brings colonial history and indigenous cosmologies into dialogue to highlight the multiple voices that give the world its vitality.