The University of Arizona Press
Date: Thursday, May 15, 2025
Time: 5 p.m., MST
Place: Mission Garden, ., Tucson, AZ
Gary Nabhan invites us to ask, “Why Does the Desert Smell Like Rain: A Desert Whodunnit (with Recipes)” in this first sunset event of the summer at Mission Garden. Nabhan is desert ecologist and ethnobotanist with fifty years of fieldwork in the desert. He wrote his now classic book, The Desert Smells Like Rain at the beginning of his career. In the hot summer season, Mission Garden invites to enjoy the evening sunset glow and cooler temperatures at the garden. This free event will feature food from Oaxarico.
About the book:
Published more than forty years ago, The Desert Smells Like Rain remains a classic about nature, the Sonoran Desert and the Tohono O’odham. Gary Paul Nabhan brings O’odham voices to the page at every turn. He writes elegantly of how they husband scant water supplies, grow crops, and utilize edible wild foods. Woven through his account are coyote tales, O’odham children’s impressions of the desert, and observations of the political problems that come with living on both sides of an international border. Nabhan conveys the everyday life and extraordinary perseverance of these desert people.
