Career
She has written several books, two of which have been translated into English. Her parents were the first whites to live with the newly discovered tribe of about 400 people, who hunted with bow and arrow, ate snakes, insects and worms, and practiced intertribal warfare and revenge killings. The Kueglers were there to study the tribe"s language.
Her mother, trained as a nurse, performed midwife duties with the tribe.
At age 17, Sabine Kuegler left and attended a Swiss boarding school. Her parents have returned to Germany.
Her best-selling first book Dschungelkind (Jungle Child) (Droemer Knaur, München 2005, ) describes her experiences in the two different cultures and her occasional nostalgia for the simpler, slower life of the tribe. An English translation (Jungle Child, X) appeared in the same year and a German film adaptation in 2011.
Her second book, Ruf des Dschungels (Call of the Jungle) (Droemer Knaur, München 2006, ) describes a visit to the Fayu that she undertook in late 2005.
A third book, "Jäger und Gejagte" (Hunter and prey) describes her experiences living in Europe. The German group Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker criticized her first book, claiming that it romanticized the life of the Fayu and pointing out that it failed to mention the human rights violations of the Indonesian government against Papua peoples, and their endangerment by clearing of the jungle and industrial projects. She has aimed to be a spokesperson for the threatened Fayu.
