The Tree Where Man Was Born,New

About the Author PETER MATTHIESSEN has written eight novels, a book of short stories, and, from his career as a naturalist and environmental activist, numerous acclaimed works of nonfiction. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1974. He has won two National Book Awards, including the 2008 award for fiction for his book Shadow Country. Product Description In this classic volume, Peter Matthiessen exquisitely combines nature and travel writing to bring East Africa to vivid life. He skillfully and magically portrays the sights, scenes, and people he observed firsthand in several trips over the course of a dozen years: the daily lives of herdsmen and huntergatherers; the drama of the predator kills; the hundreds of exotic animals; the breathtaking landscapes; the area's turbulent natural, political, and social histories; the adventures of the field biologists who pursue and investigate the habits of wild creatures; the anthropologists seeking man's origins throughout the Rift Valley; and the lonely African, poised between the traditional ways and the conflicting demands of Western culture. Review Few nature books called 'classic' are as deserving of the appellation as this one, for no one writes about Africa with quite the same insight and enthusiasm as Peter Matthiessen. . . .his grasp of people, events, history, science, and conservation is exceptional. . . .With his sympathy for and knowledge of the tribal peoples and the wildlife of Africa, Matthiessen has an uncanny ability to make us see a raw and untouched landscape where only those people who have adapted their lives to the patterns of nature truly belong. This is a place where we are the intruder, and it takes a rare writer to make us see it that way. Kirkus (UK)Stunning. . . .The Africa [Matthiessen] evokes is finally timeless, majestic, throbbing with life, indivisible. Saturday ReviewThe lush prose casts its own spell on a landscape observed with awe and inexplicable sadness. . . .[Matthiessen's] narrative powers are considerable. . . . Kirkus Reviews From AudioFile Peter Matthiessen traveled around Africa, including the Sudan, Kenya, and Tanzania, to see its wildlife. His account of his travels starts with the tree of the title and weaves ancestral stories and local history into a travelogue. In the book's best moments, Dion Graham's deep voice adds a poetic quality to the author's descriptive writing as he talks about watching wild elephants or buffalo. Graham also brings life to Matthiessen's meetings with Africans and Europeans. Still, some of the background comes across as dry. The author's introduction acknowledges that a lot has happened since the book's original 1972 publication. With the help of Graham's strong reading, this is still an interesting look at the continent. J.A.S. AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine