Surviving Paradise

SURVIVING PARADISE

One Year on a Disappearing Island

by
Peter Rudiak-Gould

 

 

New York / London
www.sterlingpublishing.com

 

 

 

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

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Published by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016
© 2009 by Peter Rudiak-Gould
Distributed in Canada by Sterling Publishing
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Design and layout by Guenet Abraham

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Sterling ISBN 978-1-4027-6664-0

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To my parents

“The very name of the Pacifc is a misnomer.”

PAUL THEROUX, THE HAPPY ISLES OF OCEANIA

 

 

 

 

 

 

IF THE MARSHALL ISLANDS TRIGGER ANY ASSOCIATION AT ALL, IT IS
typically something tragic: World War II battleground, American nuclear testing site, imminent casualty of global warming.

I will tell you about all of these things, but I will also give you the other story: life after the Japanese military occupation, life away from atomic tests obliterating entire islets, life before the waters rise. This is not a tale of pitiful oppressed natives. It is my portrait of one Marshall Island at the turn of the twenty-first century, and how it felt to live alone in this alien culture on a remote speck of land at a rather tender age—how it was just like a rocky first romance, complete with infatuation and disillusionment. And if these low-lying islands are indeed doomed—if I spent my year there in the country's twilight—then all the more reason to write about the place now.

The events and people in this story are real except for tiny liberties taken for their privacy. A few local people did embarrassing things while I was there. I've left those episodes out. But the embarrassing things that
I
did—well, those I've left in, because even a year on a disappearing island can be funny.