A Taste for Green Tangerines, by Barbara Bisco

A romp through the Indonesian rainforest

Review by Helen Ochyra

Product

A Taste For Green Tangerines, by Barbara Bisco

Fancy a trip to the hot, lush, abundant jungles of Indonesia? Dive into Barbara Bisco's debut novel 'A Taste For Green Tangerines' and you can enter this thrilling wilderness without leaving the comfort of your favourite armchair. As we follow Brit-born anthropologist Bethany Parker's first trepidatious steps into Borneo to join a team of environmentalists building an eco-resort, Bisco conjures up the colourful and intense atmosphere of the rainforest with skill, plunging the reader headlong into an unfamiliar world of deadly creatures, dense vegetation and a people embroiled in generations of tribal traditions.

Seeking to help the local Dayak tribe adjust to the presence of a luxury hotel in their homeland, Bethany begins to delve into a fascinating culture in which guidance comes from long-dead ancestors, medicinal plants are everyday and sex is no taboo. But as she gets closer to the residents of Nanga Palin, her surroundings begin to exhibit their savagery, and the culture she has tried so hard to infiltrate starts to show its sinister side.

While her deep-rooted and long-held western values are challenged by the increasingly incomprehensible Indonesian tribes, Bethany must also face the erosion of her newfound community as the motives of the other ecologists are thrown into question and a series of increasingly disastrous events puts her, her colleagues and the whole Dayak tribe in very serious danger.

Verdict

An engaging and enjoyable romp of a read for the armchair traveller.