- Imprint: Penguin
- ISBN: 9781804994399
- Length: 400 pages
- Price: £9.99
GuardianHistory and travelogue combine wonderfully in this tale of colonial plunder and hubris…Sophy Roberts’ luminous new book is a journey through Africa from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika and back, retracing the steps of a long-forgotten expedition. Reflective, watchful, calm, Roberts is such a vivid travel writer that you forget what a brilliant historian she is. She has the water-diviner’s gift for stories in unlikely places.
IndependentRoberts writes elegantly and empathetically and part of the book's power is seeing through her astute eyes the bleak and strange fate of so many magnificent elephants.
Luke Pepera, author of Motherland: A Journey through 500,000 Years of African Culture and IdentityRoberts brings to immediate life the bizarre and long-forgotten story of Belgian king Leopold II's plan to train elephants in Africa that would help plunder its resources. A deeply-researched and smoothly-written blend of travel and historical writing filled with empathy, intriguing encounters and memorable characters, not least the elephants themselves.
Amal Chatterjee, author of Across The LakesSophy Roberts takes us from stormy, desolate Donegal on to a journey into a dark corner of history, untangling the strands of Belgian king Leopold’s seemingly insane plan to use elephants from India to plunder the Congo. She weaves a rich, engrossing tapestry of greed and disregard for life, human and animal, that stretches across continents, and across time, from the late nineteenth century to this day. This is more than an account, it’s a deep dive into the avarice and complexity of colonialism, skilfully guided by a narrator whose words brings to life people, places and actions that have been set aside or glossed over. To read it is to know so much more of the world today and then, and how the past shapes the present. Few write as compellingly as Roberts, this is her as only she can write.
Thomas Pakenham, author of The Scramble for AfricaA cautionary tale from the early days of the Scramble for Africa, but poignant and scholarly too. Roberts writes beautifully.
Mary Harper, former BBC Africa editor, UN Advisor and author of Getting Somalia Wrong?Sophy Roberts’ chance encounter with a map leads her to a bizarre colonial project to march Indian elephants into the heart of Africa to train their unruly cousins. She retraces their journey, bringing history to life with vivid descriptions of brutal terrain and encounters with living descendants of those involved in this cruel, misguided venture. Roberts tackles difficult, sensitive subjects with careful, exquisite prose. Unputdownable.
Levison Wood, author of Walking the NileMasterfully weaving adventure, intrigue and the darker truths of colonial ambition into a story as gripping as it is eye-opening.
Justin Marozzi, author of Baghdad, City of Peace, City of BloodA brave and searching book, rich in history and fierce in spirit. The best sort of travel writing: handsome prose, teeming with humanity and an unwavering sense of wonder.
Paul TherouxThis is a marvellous book, an important footnote to history - of Sophy Roberts' intrepid travel with a real purpose, shining a light on colonialism, Belgian and British, and their peculiar obsessions, in this case elephants, beloved creatures also colonized and exploited.
About Sophy Roberts
Sophy Roberts is an award-winning British journalist, and a regular contributor to FT Weekend. Her critically acclaimed first book, The Lost Pianos of Siberia, was a Sunday Times Book of the Year in 2020, and went on to be published in eight more languages. Her second book, A Training School for Elephants, is another unusual quest, threading lost history with modern reportage in India, Iraq, DRC, Tanzania and Belgium. Following an 1879 journey that four elephants from Pune made to Africa’s Great Lakes, it is a reckoning with colonial ambitions gone berserk.
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All editions
- Hardback 2025
- Paperback 2026
- Ebook 2025
- Audio Download 2025