Child Of The Jungle

In 1980 seven-year-old Sabine Kuegler and her family went to live in a remote jungle area of West Papua among the recently discovered Fayu - a tribe untouched by modern civilisation. Her childhood was spent hunting, shooting poisonous spiders with arrows and chewing on pieces of bat-wing in place of gum. She also learns how brutal nature can be - and sees the effect of war and hatred on tribal peoples.

After the death of her Fayu-brother, Ohri, Sabine decides to leave the jungle and, aged seventeen, she goes to a boarding school in Switzerland - a traumatic change for a girl who acts and feels like one of the Fayu. 'Fear is something I learnt here' she says. 'In the Lost Valley, with a lost tribe, I was happy. In the rest of the world it was I who was lost.'

Here is Sabine Kuegler's remarkable true story of a childhood lived out in the Indonesian jungle and the struggle to conform to European society that followed.

“"Young readers, and anthropologists, too, will find this account of a most unusual childhood engrossing."”

'Gripping and very different--Elle Girl
Fabulous. . . the stuff of adventure storybooks and the National Geographic--Daily Telegraph

Born in 1972 in Nepal, Sabine Kuegler was five when she came to live in the remote West Papuan jungle. Today she lives near Hamburg, has four children and has started up her own media company.

In 1980 seven-year-old Sabine Kuegler and her family went to live in a remote jungle area of West Papua among the recently discovered Fayu - a tribe untouched by modern civilisation. Her childhood was spent hunting, shooting poisonous spiders with arrows and chewing on pieces of bat-wing in place of gum. She also learns how brutal nature can be - and sees the effect of war and hatred on tribal peoples.After the death of her Fayu-brother, Ohri, Sabine decides to leave the jungle and, aged seventeen, she goes to a boarding school in Switzerland - a traumatic change for a girl who acts and feels like one of the Fayu. 'Fear is something I learnt here' she says. 'In the Lost Valley, with a lost tribe, I was happy. In the rest of the world it was I who was lost.'Here is Sabine Kuegler's remarkable true story of a childhood lived out in the Indonesian jungle and the struggle to conform to European society that followed.

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