A Training School for Elephants

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‘History and travelogue combine wonderfully in this tale of colonial plunder and hubris… 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.’ Guardian

In 1879 King Leopold II of Belgium launched an ambitious plan to plunder Africa’s resources. The key to the continent, or so he thought, was its elephants – if only he could control them. And so he had four tamed Asian elephants shipped from India to the East African coast, where they were marched inland towards Congo. The aim was to establish a training school for African elephants.

Following the route of this long-forgotten expedition, Roberts travels to Belgium, Iraq, India, Tanzania and Congo digging deep into the records to bring to life a compelling cast of historic characters and modern voices, from ivory dealers and powerful chiefs to birders and Catholic nuns. Vivid and poignant, A Training School for Elephants grapples with our history of animal and human exploitation and reveals an extraordinary – and enduring – tale of colonial greed, ineptitude, hypocrisy and folly.

History and travelogue combine wonderfully in this tale of colonial plunder and hubris…Sophy Roberts’ luminous new book is a journey through Africa from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika and back, retracing the steps of a long-forgotten expedition. 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.
Guardian

Roberts brings to immediate life the bizarre and long-forgotten story of Belgian king Leopold II's plan to train elephants in Africa that would help plunder its resources. A deeply-researched and smoothly-written blend of travel and historical writing filled with empathy, intriguing encounters and memorable characters, not least the elephants themselves.
Luke Pepera, author of Motherland: A Journey through 500,000 Years of African Culture and Identity

Sophy Roberts takes us from stormy, desolate Donegal on to a journey into a dark corner of history, untangling the strands of Belgian king Leopold’s seemingly insane plan to use elephants from India to plunder the Congo. She weaves a rich, engrossing tapestry of greed and disregard for life, human and animal, that stretches across continents, and across time, from the late nineteenth century to this day. This is more than an account, it’s a deep dive into the avarice and complexity of colonialism, skilfully guided by a narrator whose words brings to life people, places and actions that have been set aside or glossed over. To read it is to know so much more of the world today and then, and how the past shapes the present. Few write as compellingly as Roberts, this is her as only she can write.
Amal Chatterjee, author of Across The Lakes

Sophy Roberts’ chance encounter with a map leads her to a bizarre colonial project to march Indian elephants into the heart of Africa to train their unruly cousins. She retraces their journey, bringing history to life with vivid descriptions of brutal terrain and encounters with living descendants of those involved in this cruel, misguided venture. Roberts tackles difficult, sensitive subjects with careful, exquisite prose. Unputdownable.
Mary Harper, former BBC Africa editor, UN Advisor and author of Getting Somalia Wrong?

About Sophy Roberts

Sophy Roberts is an award-winning British journalist, and a regular contributor to FT Weekend. Her critically acclaimed first book, The Lost Pianos of Siberia, was a Sunday Times Book of the Year in 2020, and went on to be published in eight more languages. Her second book, A Training School for Elephants, is another unusual quest, threading lost history with modern reportage in India, Iraq, DRC, Tanzania and Belgium. Following an 1879 journey that four elephants from Pune made to Africa’s Great Lakes, it is a reckoning with colonial ambitions gone berserk.

Details

Imprint: Penguin
Published: 02/04/2026
ISBN: 9781804994399
Length: 400 pages
Price: £11.99

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A Training School for Elephants

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Roberts writes elegantly and empathetically and part of the book's power is seeing through her astute eyes the bleak and strange fate of so many magnificent elephants.

A cautionary tale from the early days of the Scramble for Africa, but poignant and scholarly too. Roberts writes beautifully.

Masterfully weaving adventure, intrigue and the darker truths of colonial ambition into a story as gripping as it is eye-opening.

A brave and searching book, rich in history and fierce in spirit. The best sort of travel writing: handsome prose, teeming with humanity and an unwavering sense of wonder.

This is a marvellous book, an important footnote to history - of Sophy Roberts' intrepid travel with a real purpose, shining a light on colonialism, Belgian and British, and their peculiar obsessions, in this case elephants, beloved creatures also colonized and exploited.

About Sophy Roberts

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