Training School for Elephants (2026)

From the award-winning author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia comes a new journey following four nineteenth-century elephants marched from the East African coast towards Congo, revealing a heartbreaking story of folly and colonial greed. In 1879, King Leopold II of Belgium launches an ambitious plan to plunder Africa’s resources. He believes elephants are the key to opening up the continent, if only they can be trained. He commissions the charismatic Irish adventurer Frederick Carter to transport four tamed Asian elephants from India to the East African coast, then march them inland towards Congo, with the ultimate aim of establishing a training school for African elephants. Following in the elephants’ footsteps, Sophy Roberts pieces together the incredible true story of this long-forgotten expedition. Her travels take her to Belgium, Iraq, India, Tanzania and Congo, bringing to life a compelling cast of historical characters and modern voices, from ivory dealers to Catholic nuns, amid rich descriptions of the landscapes along the way. Combining history and travel writing, the book examines colonial plunder, imperial ambition, ineptitude, hypocrisy and folly, as well as our broken relationship with animals. The book is an instant Sunday Times bestseller, winner of the Stanford’s Travel Writing Book of the Year 2026, and shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation 2025.