Adopted into a Pum├й family, Yu's informal and personal accounts of events during her two year stay sparkle with descriptive flourishes and turns of phrase as she describes the daily cycles of birth, growth, romance, sickness, healing, and death among the villagers. Enlivened with the author's own illustrations, Yu's journal entries seek to present through a young American's eyes a sketch of her Pum├й family, their heroic struggle to survive in a changing world, and the power and mystery of the Pum├й way of life.
"In Hungry Lightning we glimpse haunting fragments of life among the Pum├й Indians. We find an intimate, deeply feminine--but ever-so-slightly jaded and strangely melancholic--voice savoring the tastes and smells of life lived in the Venezuelan savanna. A complexly sensual portrait."--Barbara Tedlock