The Elephants in the Room: An Excavation

by Martin Rowe

Through the lens of Rowe's relationships with two Kenyan conservationists—Wangari Maathai and Daphne Sheldrick—The Elephants in the Room surveys a number of prejudices that many of us who are fortunate to be born with the privileges attached to our skin color, sex, and access to resources don't like to deal with: race, misogyny, and the legacy of empire. By examining the two women's memoirs (Unbowed and Love, Life, and Elephants), both of which were launched following talks at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, these metaphorical elephants in the room are combined with a study of the exploitation of actual elephants on the continent of Africa, and the iterations of memory that are disclosed or hidden in the writing of memoirs and the collecting of bones for museums. Like elephants themselves, The Elephants in the Room ranges far, analyzing work by Joseph Conrad, Robert Pogue Harrison, Barbara Gowdy, Willard Price, George Orwell, Adam Hochschild, and others.

244 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 15, 2013

About the author

I am a graduate in English literature and language from Oxford and in religious studies from NYU. In 1999, I co-founded Lantern Books, a publisher of books on vegetarianism, animal advocacy, spirituality, and natural healing. It is now Lantern Publishing & Media, a non-profit publishing company.

I founded a monthly magazine Satya, and was its editor for five and a half years. In 1999, I published The Way of Compassion: Vegetarianism, Environmentalism, Animal Advocacy, and Social Justice. In 2003, I published my novel Nicaea: A Book of Correspondences with Lindisfarne Books.

I'm the co-author of Right Off the Bat: Baseball, Cricket, Literature, and Life; The Polar Bear in the Zoo: A Speculation; The Elephants in the Room: An Excavation; and (with Ruth Heidrich), Lifelong Running. Most recently, I have authored a satirical epic-poem, The Trumpiad, and the poem The Animals Are Leaving Us (with photos by Jo-Anne McArthur). I am also the librettist for a song-cycle (music by Mihoko Suzuki) called And the Hummingbird Says.