Sand Rivers

The African Trilogy #3

by Peter Matthiessen, Hugo van Lawick (Photographer)

Focusing on a 1979 safari into the Selous Game Reserve in southern Tanzania, the expert text and revealing photographs portray the people, the land, and the numerous wild animals of one of the world's last great wilderness areas

Genres: Africa, Nonfiction, Nature, Animals, Travel, Environment, Tanzania

213 pages, Paperback

First published April 9, 1981

About the author

Peter Matthiessen is the author of more than thirty books and the only writer to win the National Book Award for both non-fiction (The Snow Leopard, in two categories, in 1979 and 1980) and fiction (Shadow Country, in 2008). A co-founder of The Paris Review and a world-renowned naturalist, explorer and activist, he died in April 2014.

Reviews

[John Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1976, I took the TanZam Railway along the edge of the Selous Game Reserve in southern Tanzania and was amazed at the amount of wildlife there. This book tells of Peter Matthiessen's trip there only a few years later (1979) as part of an arranged safari with Brian Nicholson, the former game warden there, and about 10-15 other European friends and Tanzanian and Kenyan support staff. The book includes pictures by Hugo van Lawick. They don't add as much to this book as Eliot Porter's did to THE TREE WHERE MAN WAS BORN. The book brings out the place and the members of the group, both Europeans and the African support staff. The last three chapters are about a 10-day foot safari that Brian Nicholson and Peter Matthiessen did with about 5 support staff. Nicholson and Matthiessen are often at odds about how they think wildlife management might be done, and the author brings out their differences clearly, but also his growing admiration for Brian Nicholson. This book does not seem as good as his two other African wildlife books but it does bring out this place well and the interactions of this group during the month that they were in the Selous.

[Andy Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would read any of Matthiessen's writings, fiction and non-fiction. This is his account of a trip in 1979 to the Selous Game park in Tanzania. The content is familiar, the prose is lovely. Here's an example: 'Standing barefoot on white African sands, smelling the damp algal smells, the mineral rot of driftwood, I studied the tracks of [animals], the ancient hand-prints and serpentine tail-furrow made by crocodile … the air was filled with engaging dung smells and the protest of hippos ...'. Lavish full-colour photos.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A travelogue essay on an eight day hiking safari through the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania. As always, Matthiessen captures the beauty and thrill of the back country nature he encounters, and his descriptions of near miss scares on foot with elephants and rhinos bring back sharp memories of the one day we actually hiked through elephant territory in Zambia - as he observes, fundamentally different from a Land Rover safari! A lovely ending to the African Trilogy.

[Tim Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars It was an interesting historical/cultural/ecological look back 4 decades at East Africa at the height of the poaching epidemic. I found the latter half of the book the most interesting as it got more up close and personal with the individuals in the safari as well as the more detailed wildlife encounters.

[Richp · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit further from the beaten path of most of my reading. As one reader noted, it does not have much of a plot, but it does not really need one. The introspection of Matthiessen's prior book, The Snow Leopard, is not here.

[Ian Duvenhage · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Beautifully written with Matthiessen’s extraordinary ability to capture flora, fauna, geography and man in the moment. A must read for lovers of nature.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

My dad gave me this after I read and loved Douglas A. Chadwick's The Fate of the Elephant. I couldn't help but compare this book to that one, which is actually one of my favorite books. I like Matthiessen's writing--he has some really beautiful and vivid descriptions of Africa's plants, landscapes, and especially of its fauna. I just didn't find the "plot" very compelling. The point was to describe the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania, to let people know what it was like, that it was a last stronghold of big game in Africa, that parts of it were still untouched by white man (colonizers, I should say, but I'm using his language), Old Africa. I get that, and it is an important record. But parts of the account were boring to me and didn't really say anything important.
I like that Matthiessen blends description with biography (mostly of Brian Nicholson, longtime warden of the Selous), history, and sociopolitical commentary (the book was written not long after the end of colonial rule in Kenya and Tanzania that led to major conflicts within and between the two neighboring countries). I just wish there was more interest, like in Chadwick's book, which recounts his travels in researching elephants and the ivory trade. I guess this book is too broad and too short to really cover everything that it sets out to cover. And I'm sorry, but Hugo van Lawick's photos are mostly disappointing.
I still recommend this book to people interested in reading about Africa, Old and New, and to people who love reading about wildlife. It is an interesting, albeit too brief, account, and it certainly is informative.

[Daniel Simmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been a fan of Matthiessen's nonfiction for some time, and having visited the Selous Game Reserve myself several years ago, I was eager to dive into this simple but beautifully-written account of the author's journey there in 1979. I felt myself transported back to the Selous by his gorgeous prose, though I can't say that I was nearly as lucky with my wildlife-viewing as he was (it helps to have a month's worth of tramping around with a former warden).

[Jrobertus · Rating 4 out of 5]

a fine narrative about a 1979 safari through the selous game reserve n tanzania. beautiful, poetic writing and descriptions of the land, people and personalities on the trek

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Matthiessen very much has a conservationists view, and he clearly loves nature. That love shines through in almost everything he writes.

[Nancy Mcdaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating book about two week foot safari in a relatively unknown part of Tanzania, the Selous. Written 30 years ago. A part of Tanzania I will visit pretty soon. Cant wait

[Divya · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Matthiessen

[Genie McFate]

Following elephants in Africa.

[Peter Staadecker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Matthiessen at his best. His love of the wild, his eye for people and landscape, his lyrical writing all shine. A classic.