''African Silences'' is a 1991 book by

Peter Matthiessen Peter Matthiessen (May 22, 1927 – April 5, 2014) was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher and onetime CIA agent. A co-founder of the literary magazine ''The Paris Review'', he is the only writer to have won the Nat ...

published by

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

. It recounts journeys through Equatorial Africa to study the situation of elephants and other wildlife and is a meditation upon the natural world and mankind's relationship to it and effect upon it.

Content

The book recounts two sets of journeys: firstly, trips in the 1970s to Senegal, Gambia, and the Ivory Coast (with the primatologist Gilbert Boese) and secondly a 1986 trip to Gabon and Zaire. In different areas he explored different animals—for example, in Zaire, he was concerned primarily with the Congo peacock. Matthiessen observed that the situation in terms of animal populations and their sustainability was often far worse than anticipated—in certain cases "the animals are so scarce that they have no reality in daily life." The silence of the title refers to the silences caused by the absence of animals on the one hand and the growing absence of verdant forest away from the greater and greater proliferation of human urbanisation. One element of slight optimism amongst the rather despairing reports of the 'silencing' of nature (which has an echo of

Rachel Carson Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservation movement, conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book ''Silent Spring'' (1962) are credited with advancing mari ...

's ''

Silent Spring ''Silent Spring'' is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of DDT, a pesticide used by soldiers during World War II. Carson acc ...

'') is the discussion of moves for an international ban on the ivory trade, which Matthiessen thought were influenced by the study conducted by him in collaboration with the ecologist

David Western David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damas ...

regarding the population of the

forest elephant The African forest elephant (''Loxodonta cyclotis'') is one of the two living species of African elephant, along with the African bush elephant. It is native to humid tropical forests in West Africa and the Congo Basin. It is the smallest of the ...

. The book also has a political subtext, since Matthiessen also commented on the brutality of certain governments in the region, as well as discussing the environment and the natural world. Certain human groups are described in far more glowing terms, such as the Mbuti pygmies in the

Ituri Forest The Ituri Rainforest (French language, French: ''Forêt tropicale de l’Ituri'') is a rainforest located in the Ituri Province of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The forest's name derives from the nearby Ituri River which flows ...

References

1991 non-fiction books Books about Africa Books by Peter Matthiessen {{africa-studies-stub