R550.00
In Kruger Speaks, Helena Kriel and Don Pinnock bring South Africa’s most famous national park vividly to life through intimate interviews, evocative storytelling and close observation. Rangers, scientists, workers and travellers join the wildlife and landscape itself in revealing the hidden rhythms of Kruger, from elephants shaping ecosystems to the people working to protect them. Rich, atmospheric and deeply engaged with conservation, this is a compelling portrait of a remarkable landscape and the complex forces that continue to shape it.
Description
Across nearly 20,000 square kilometres of ancient land, Kruger National Park reveals itself not as a destination, but as a living, breathing presence. In this extraordinary book, the park speaks through a chorus of voices: rangers, scientists, workers, travellers and the wildlife and landscape itself.
From the slow rhythm of a dawn drive to the magnetic silence of a riverbank, each page invites you deeper into a world where elephants shape landscapes, antelope sustain entire ecosystems and birds carry echoes of deep time. Through intimate interviews and vivid storytelling, the hidden life of the park emerges: the dedication of those who protect it, the complexity of conservation, the rough lives of the poachers who plunder it and the ever-present tension between sanctuary and survival.
Accompanied by striking photography, Kruger Speaks captures both the grandeur and the subtlety of one of Earth’s last great wild places.
About the authors
Helena Kriel is a writer, producer, award-winning screenwriter and playwright. Her bestselling memoirs, The Year of Facing Fire – A Memoir and Meditating with Rhinos, explore the all-too-delicate relationships humans have with each other and with the natural world. A dedicated conservationist, she is the founder of Baby Rhino Rescue, a non-profit that partners with organisations committed to rhino conservation in South Africa and Kenya. She leads immersive creative and spiritual journeys into the Indian Himalayas and the South African bush. Born in Johannesburg, she divides her time between South Africa and the United States.
Dr Don Pinnock is an environmental and investigative journalist with Daily Maverick and former editor of the travel magazine Getaway. He is a criminologist and historian by training and has written or co-authored 18 books, many of them on environmental issues. These include The Last Elephants and The Last Lions, which address the alarming state of the lion and elephant populations in Africa. He has won two Mondi Awards for his environmental columns, the City Press Non-Fiction Award for his book Gang Town, and his novel on Khoisan magic, Rainmaker, was shortlisted for the European Union Literary Award.
