Eat Dust was born out of personal anguish. Hartman de Souza saw a hill that he had struggled to climb in the 1990s literally disappear as mining operations ravaged it. As he followed the trail of the missing hill, De Souza was confronted with burnished orange deserts where once all was verdant. Enraged, he travelled the length and breadth of Goa, painstakingly documenting the operations of the state's powerful mining mafia. At once travelogue, investigative journalism and family memoir, Eat Dust maps the culture, topography and cultural diversity of Goa. When the mining starts again, as it seems poised to, De Souza's chronicles will stay behind like the taste of strong coffee, taken with less sugar to give it bite.