A Training School For Elephants

"Luminous… Reflective, watchful, calm, Roberts is such a vivid travel writer that you forget what a brilliant historian she is. She has the water-diviner’s gift for stories in unlikely places. And then, through research in archives as well as on the ground, for uncovering sparky details that bring the story to life." — The Guardian

"An elegant mixture of history, reportage and travel writing – she has a light touch and never slips into righteous didacticism.  Rather, following in the elephants’ footsteps, she discovers that they left an indelible folk memory behind them." — New Statesman

Much has been written about the history of Leopold’s misadventures in Congo, which took place, in a sense, at one remove, since he never visited. Good starting points include Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost (1998) and David van Reybrouck’s Congo (2015). In A Training School for Elephants, Sophy Roberts’ focus is narrower but no less illuminating... she is an excellent reporter, gleaning important details from descendants of people named in or adjacent to the historical record… her prose is replete with novelistic turns of phrase." — Engelsberg Ideas

"Roberts writes elegantly and empathetically… part of the book’s power is seeing through  her astute eyes the bleak and strange fate of so many magnificent elephants." — The Independent

"Fascinating… a tragic tale and Roberts tells it beautifully… Roberts has produced another wonderful book – a compelling blend of travelogue and history – that marks her out as a singular literary talent." — Literary Review

"Grimly compelling… Roberts tells the story with panache." — Mail on Sunday

 "A Training School for Elephants works precisely because it is so evocative, and because many of the characters within are more complex – in all their greed and prejudice, but also courage and misguided idealism – than might be fashionable to admit in our censorious times." — Times Literary Supplement

"Such an all encompassing and unclassifiable book. It bridges history, travel writing, natura history with stunning prose. Sophy Roberts has found a tiny story in colonial history and used it to write a masterpiece. She writes about human tragedy, past and present, with such delicacy." — Jaffe & Neale

"A Training School for Elephants is a compelling and poignant book that — alongside her first book, The Lost Pianos of Siberia — signals the rise of an important new voice in non-fiction writing." — Foyles