Risse in der Erde

Water is the central protagonist in Mark Arax's epic work, which tells the story of the creation and invention of a place of longing: the thousand-kilometer-long edge of the North American continent, California, which has always been at the mercy of the wild swings of drought and flood, whether during the Gold Rush or the agricultural boom. Countless individuals appear alongside – historical and living, renowned and nameless – each playing their own role in the history of water in California: politicians and large farmers of nut, grape, and citrus plantations, indigenous people, precariously employed farmworkers, and small farmers striving for more sustainable agriculture. Arax himself frequently takes on the role of chronicler, as he is interested in the intersection between the personal and the land that has shaped his family, which fled the genocide of Armenians, over two generations. Thus, reportage, history, and memoir combine into a grand narrative about water and land, written in a captivating, powerful prose that vividly portrays the richest American state, where Big Ag continues to reap record harvests despite the global climate crisis, in all its contradictions.