Since graduating from the J-School in 2020, Mara Kardas-Nelson has been working on her first book, We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky, an acclaimed and critical history of microfinance released in June.

We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky is a story about unintended consequences, blind optimism, and the decades-long ramifications of seemingly small policy choices, rooted in the stories of women borrowers in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Their narratives are set against the rise of Muhammad Yunus’s vision that tiny loans would “put poverty in museums” and explored through a deep history of modern international development. Kardas-Nelson asks: What is missed with a single, financially-focused solution to global inequity that ignores the real drivers of poverty? Who stands to benefit and, more important, who gets left behind?

She started the book while in lecturer Adam Hochschild‘s book writing class in 2019, and received support from other faculty at the J-School as well as from the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley.

“Through a dazzling, superbly paced combination of astute history and on-the-ground observation in Sierra Leone, West Africa, Mara Kardas-Nelson holds the claims of microfinance up to the light. I wish that every new idea touted as the solution to the world’s problems had such a thoughtful and compassionate examination.”
—Adam Hochschild, bestselling author of American Midnight and King Leopold’s Ghost

“A keen examination of the rise and fall in popularity of the microfinance loan system… This thoughtful deep dive into the world of microfinance is both educative and heartbreaking.”
—Kirkus

“Through extensive archival research, [Kardas-Nelson] pieces together an account of the 20th-century rise of microfinance as part of America’s ‘international development’ apparatus, revealing how starry-eyed American ‘activists, feminists, and funders… create[d] the conditions’ for today’s global predatory lending problems…Kardas-Nelson’s crisp characterizations and novelistic storytelling bring clarity to a sprawling, shadowy history. The result is a devastating look at a disaster set into motion by misguided American policymakers.”

—Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

About the Author

Mara Kardas-Nelson. Photo: Jess Alvarenga (’20).

Mara Kardas-Nelson is an independent journalist focusing on international development, health policy, the environment and inequality. Her award-winning work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, NPR, The Guardian, and elsewhere. Her first book, We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky, a critical history of microfinance, was published by Metropolitan Books/Holt in June 2024. Mara has also worked in global health, with South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, the Access Campaign of Médecins Sans Frontières, Partners in Health and elsewhere. Originally from the U.S., she has also lived in Canada, South Africa, and Sierra Leone. Her time in different parts of the world informs the questions she asks, and how she frames her stories.