“A Must read!”
Elephant won the gold medal for Historical Fiction-20th century in the Global Book Awards
The Memory of an Elephant is the highly emotional story of Ishi, a Bull Elephant coming to the end of his life, who decides to travel back to the plains of his birth in Kenya before he dies. I read most of it with a giant lump in my throat and defy anyone not to be moved by the story of this supremely intelligent majestic creature.
This is a beautifully told epic story that brings the beauty and wild cruelty of Africa vividly to life.
Joanna Joseph, Reedsy Reviewer for The Memory of an Elephant
“I have never read anything that reflects my feelings and experiences regarding the intelligence and emotional life of elephants as clearly as what Mr. Lasker has done here. I hope this novel will bring an appreciation of elephants to the greater world and help ensure their survival.”
John Lehnardt, Fmr. Executive Director, The National Elephant Center, for The Memory of an Elephant
“I remember every sight, every sound, every smell, from the moment of my birth to the moment we are in now. I have no dates to mark the time by, and no knowledge of the two-leggers’ boundaries, but I know I’ve been taken to distant lands and climates, across endless waters to towering nests filled with noise and unbearably bright lights, where countless of them hurtle about in their false beasts.
My world is out under the open sky, where the stars are so close you can see them moving across the night. It is under that sky that I hope to end my journey, among the two-legged friends who raised me, and the friends and aunties from my long ago adopted herd.”
“So begins a tender, sometimes heartbreaking saga that spans three continents, five decades, and a more than 1,000-mile journey by the elephant back to the Tsavo wildlife refuge, his birthplace…” “A vivid and timely depiction of the sentience of elephants and the cruelty of ivory poaching.”
Kirkus Reviews, for The Memory of an Elephant