Oak Flat

A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West

By: Lauren Redniss

Narrated by: Lauren Redniss, Darrell Dennis, Kyla Garcia, Kimberly Guerrero, Hillary Huber, Ann Marie Lee, Elizabeth Liang, Crystle Lightning, Jon Lindstrom, A. Martinez, John H. Mayer, Arthur Morey, Tanis Parenteau, Various

A powerful work of visual nonfiction about three generations of an Apache family struggling to protect sacred land from a multinational mining corporation, by MacArthur “Genius” and National Book Award finalist Lauren Redniss, the acclaimed author of Thunder & Lightning.

Oak Flat is a serene high-elevation mesa that sits above the southeastern Arizona desert, fifteen miles to the west of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. For the San Carlos tribe, Oak Flat is a holy place, an ancient burial ground and religious site where Apache girls celebrate the coming-of-age ritual known as the Sunrise Ceremony. In 1995, a massive untapped copper reserve was discovered nearby. A decade later, a law was passed transferring the area to a private company, whose planned copper mine will wipe Oak Flat off the map—sending its natural springs, petroglyph-covered rocks, and old-growth trees tumbling into a void.

Redniss’s deep reporting anchors this mesmerizing human narrative. Oak Flat tells the story of a race-against-time struggle for a swath of American land, which pits one of the poorest communities in the United States against the federal government and two of the world’s largest mining conglomerates. The book follows the fortunes of two families with profound connections to the contested site: the Nosies, an Apache family whose teenage daughter is an activist and leader in the Oak Flat fight, and the Gorhams, a mining family whose patriarch was a sheriff in the lawless early days of Arizona statehood.

The still-unresolved Oak Flat conflict is ripped from today’s headlines, but its story resonates with foundational American themes: the saga of westward expansion, the resistance and resilience of Native peoples, and the efforts of profiteers to control the land and unearth treasure beneath it while the lives of individuals hang in the balance.

This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains a selection of original illustrations by the author, which appear in the print book.

Read by: Lauren Redniss, Darrell Dennis, Kimberly Farr, Kyla Garcia, Kimberly Guerrero, Hillary Huber, Ami Korn, A. Martinez, Ann Marie Lee, Elizabeth Liang, Crystle Lightning, Jon Lindstrom, John H. Mayer, Arthur Morey, and Tanis Parenteau

This should be required reading.

The schools are full of history books told from from one perspective. Lauren Redniss does a beautiful job of including the perspectives of a variety of people. She uses the art of story to tell the past of a land and its people and continues that story to today. I am grateful this story was written, I never heard of Oak Flat before. Now I know.

Beautiful Story

This story is absolutely wonderful. The narrators have done a tremendous job. This story was told clearly and beautifully. Alongside this, the story in general is great and teaches you a lot about Oak Flat and what is going on, along with Apache rituals and traditions. Overall, this book was a great listen, and I highly recommend for any reader.