A Primate's Memoir

By: Robert M Sapolsky

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

Brought to you by Penguin.

Discover this remarkable account of 21 years in remote Kenya with a troop of Savannah baboons from the New York Times best-selling author of Behave.

Brooklyn-born Robert Sapolsky grew up wishing he could live in the primate diorama in the Museum of Natural History. At school he wrote fan letters to primatologists and even taught himself Swahili, all with the hope of one day joining his primate brethren in Africa. But when, at the age of 21, Sapolky's dream finally comes true, he discovers that the African bush bears little resemblance to the tranquillity of a museum.

This is the story of the next 21 years as Sapolsky slowly infiltrates and befriends a troop of Savannah baboons. Alone in the middle of the Serengeti with no electricity, running water or telephone, and surviving countless scams, culinary atrocities and a surreal kidnapping, Sapolsky becomes ever more enamoured with his adopted baboon troop - unique and compelling characters in their own right - and he returns to them summer after summer, until tragedy finally prevails.

Exhilarating, hilarious and poignant, A Primate's Memoir is a uniquely honest window into the coming-of-age of one of our greatest scientific minds.

©2001 Robert M Sapolsky (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"One of the best scientist-writers of our time." (Oliver Sacks)

"A Primate's Memoir is the closest the baboon is likely to come - and it's plenty close enough - to having its own Iliad." (New York Times Review of Books)

Highly recommended

A fantastic memoir of a scientist's time in Kenya, full of anecdotes about people, baboons and science. Some parts were hilariously funny, at times it was sad and heartbreaking. I enjoyed it from start to end.

A memorable read, a perceptive look at Africa

A collection of life stories from Africa, from traveling across poor, rural Kenya, to unstable Nairobi during the coup, and sailing on the Nile to Juba, juxtaposed with the stories of the baboon troupe the author has studied for decades and of other human characters from all sorts of backgrounds and cultures he has interacted with. Sapolski’s masterful writing is captivating; the vicissitudes of the baboons take on the timeless, dramatic tone of Shakespearean tragedies, and portray with insightful brilliance the universals of life, the struggles of power, love, change, failure, aging, illness and death. A rare gem of a read, from an author who is extraordinarily perceptive and able to offer strikingly colorful, yet disenchanted depictions of life and people in Africa with unique clarity and grace, managing to come across as authentic and relatable even in the craziest situations. A memorable read.