In the Sierra Madre

by Jeff Biggers

A stunning history of legendary treasure seekers and enigmatic natives in Mexico's Copper Canyon The Sierra Madre--no other mountain range in the world possesses such a ring of intrigue. In the Sierra Madre is a groundbreaking and extraordinary memoir that chronicles the astonishing history of one of the most famous, yet unknown, regions in the world. Based on his one-year sojourn among the Raramuri/Tarahumara, award-winning journalist Jeff Biggers offers a rare look into the ways of the most resilient indigenous culture in the Americas, the exploits of Mexican mountaineers, and the fascinating parade of argonauts and accidental travelers that has journeyed into the Sierra Madre over centuries. From African explorers, Bohemian friars, Confederate and Irish war deserters, French poets, Boer and Russian commandos, Apache and Mennonite communities, bewildered archaeologists, addled writers, and legendary characters including Antonin Artaud, B. Traven, Sergei Eisenstein, George Patton, Geronimo, and Pancho Villa, Biggers uncovers the remarkable treasures of the Sierra Madre.

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Jeff Biggers is a cultural historian, journalist, playwright and novelist. He is the coauthor of the novel DISTURBING THE BONES with filmmaker Andrew Davis, and author of numerous nonfiction works, including IN SARDINIA: An Unexpected Journey in Italy (Melville House), TRIALS OF A SCOLD (St. Martin's), longlisted for the PEN Bograd Weld Award. Recipient of the David Brower Award for Environmental Reporting, Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award, Biggers has worked as a freelance journalist, radio correspondent, playwright, historian and educator across the US, Europe, Mexico and India. His stories have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera America, Salon, The Nation and on National Public Radio and Public Radio International. He blogs regularly for the Huffington Post. Contributing editor at Bloomsbury Review.

His nonfiction works include State Out of the Union, selected by Publishers Weekly as a Top Ten Social Science Book in 2012; Reckoning at Eagle Creek, recipient of the Delta Award for Literature and the David Brower Award for Environmental Reporting; In the Sierra Madre, winner of the Foreword Magazine Travel Book of the Year Award; and The United States of Appalachia, praised by the Citizen Times as a "masterpiece of popular history." He also served as co-editor of No Lonesome Road: Selected Prose and Poems of Don West, which won the American Book Award, and wrote the foreword to the re-issue of Huey Perry's classic, They'll Cut Off Your Project.

Biggers founded the Climate Narrative Project, a media arts and advocacy project.

For more info: www.jeffbiggers.com

Reviews

[RLB Hartmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great cover, interesting content. A keynote in my reference collection, and when I have time will enjoy reading it again.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spend a lot of time in the Sierra Madre. Despite the fact that Biggers changed the name of the village where he lived, I was easily able to identify it due to over 20 trips the area. Having been there many times, I guess I have my own bias. I felt that the book was at its best when Biggers detailed life with the local Raramuri. I felt that his digressions about the various outsiders who made trips to the area were things that I had to force myself to get through in order to get some more tidbits about the Raramuri in "Mawichi". Not that I don't care about Upton Sinclair and Sergei Eisenstein, et al., but I really felt that those interludes took away from what I felt was the real heart of the story: an outsider's experience with a quickly changing culture that is attempting to integrate modernity with their traditional lifestyle.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author and his wife spend a year living with the Raramari (aka Tarahumara) people in the Copper Canyon of the Sierra Madre. Well written and insightful, the best parts of this book are about daily life in the village and the interactions of the author and his wife with their neighbors and other inhabitants of this fascinating and beautiful region. The book bogs down somewhat in going through the history of the area, but of course it's important background to understanding the way things are today.

[Darlene · Rating 2 out of 5]

A corollary to my upcoming November, 2010 hike in Copper Canyon, Mexico with Sierra Club . . . Bigger's book of a personal sojourn among the Tarahumara plus historical benchmark events and personalities in the Sierra Madre predates Richard Grant's similar journalistic writing. There is some content overlap between the two books, but this volume was less engaging for me than God's Middle Finger.

[Sharon Buchbinder · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent guide at my side as I sought to learn more about the Sierra Madre and the Raramuri/Tarahumara. I enjoyed the literary allusions and historical material, both of which enabled me to put the current events in Copper Canyon into context.

[Ed Ubeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful read! There is so much history that I was unaware of. Jeff is a wonderful story teller and he does an excellent job weaving both contemporary issues and history. This is a great book to escape into on a cold winter day.

[Ray Zimmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

He spent time there in the Mountains of Mexico and relates the story of his life among the locals.

[Guy McArthur · Rating 2 out of 5]

Life is too short for boring books; I made it about ⅓rd of the way through before giving up.