The Tree Where Man Was Born by Peter Matthiessen; Unabridged MP3 Audio Book; Narrator Dion Graham

In this classic volume, Peter Matthiessen exquisitely combines nature and travel writing to bring East Africa to vivid life. He skillfully and magically portrays the sights, scenes, and people he observed firsthand in several trips over the course of a dozen years: the daily lives of herdsmen and hunter-gatherers; the drama of the predator kills; the hundreds of exotic animals; the breathtaking landscapes; the area's turbulent natural, political, and social histories; the adventures of the field biologists who pursue and investigate the habits of wild creatures; the anthropologists seeking man’s origins throughout the Rift Valley; and the lonely African, poised between the traditional ways and the conflicting demands of Western culture.

“Stunning….The Africa [Matthiessen] evokes is finally timeless, majestic, throbbing with life, indivisible.”—Saturday Review

“Dion Graham’s deep voice adds a poetic quality to the author’s descriptive writing as he talks about watching wild elephants or buffalo. Graham also brings life to Matthiessen’s meetings with Africans and Europeans.”—AudioFile

“Few nature books called 'classic' are as deserving of the appellation as this one, for no one writes about Africa with quite the same insight and enthusiasm as Peter Matthiessen…His grasp of people, events, history, science, and conservation is exceptional…With his sympathy for and knowledge of the tribal peoples and the wildlife of Africa, Matthiessen has an uncanny ability to make us see a raw and untouched landscape where only those people who have adapted their lives to the patterns of nature truly belong. This is a place where we are the intruder, and it takes a rare writer to make us see it that way.”—Kirkus (UK)

“The lush prose casts its own spell on a landscape observed with awe and inexplicable sadness…[Matthiessen’s] narrative powers are considerable.”—Kirkus Reviews

Peter Matthiessen has written eight novels, a book of short stories, and, from his career as a naturalist and environmental activist, numerous acclaimed works of nonfiction. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1974. He is a founder of the Paris Review and has won two National Book Awards, the 2000 Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, and the 2010 Spiros Vergos Prize for Freedom of Expression.

Dion Graham has performed on Broadway, Off-Broadway, internationally (including London's Royal National Theatre), in films, and in several hit television series. Critically acclaimed, his performances and narration have been praised as thoughtful and compelling, vivid and full of life.