{"product_id":"african-silences-9780679731023","title":"African Silences","description":"African Silences is a powerful and sobering account of the cataclysmic depredation of the African landscape and its wildlife. In this critically acclaimed work Peter Matthiessen explores new terrain on a continent he has written about in two previous books, A Tree Where Man Was Born -- nominated for the National Book Award -- and Sand Rivers. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThrough his eyes we see elephants, white rhinos, gorillas, and other endangered creatures of the wild. We share the drama of the journeys themselves, including a hazardous crossing of the continent in a light plane. And along the way, we learn of the human lives oppressed by bankrupt political regimes and economies, and threatened by the slow ecological catastrophe to which they have only begun to awaken.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePeter Matthiessen\u003c\/b\u003e was born in New York City in 1927 and had already begun his writing career by the time he graduated from Yale University in 1950. The following year, he was a founder of \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e. Besides \u003ci\u003eAt Play in the Fields of the Lord\u003c\/i\u003e, which was nominated for the National Book Award, he published six other works of fiction, including \u003ci\u003eFar Tortuga\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eKilling Mister Watson\u003c\/i\u003e. Matthiessen's parallel career as a naturalist and explorer resulted in numerous widely acclaimed books of nonfiction, among them \u003ci\u003eThe Tree Where Man Was Born\u003c\/i\u003e, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and\u003ci\u003e The Snow Leopard\u003c\/i\u003e, which won it. Matthiessen died in 2014.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51346513035538,"sku":"9780679731023","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_a39c0327-21ca-4f9e-be9b-2a0ed9b23581.jpg?v=1749048322","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/african-silences-9780679731023","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}