Ofir Drori was named for an ancient African land mentioned in the Bible, and his love affair with the continent began early. "Nearly from the time I could talk," he writes, "I'd planned to travel to Africa, a place as different as I wanted to think I was." The Last Great Ape, Drori's account of many years' travels through East Africa, takes readers on safaris in Kenya--where he sees his first Thomson gazelles, zebras and elephants--and to meetings with the Maasai and other "bush" people. Crossing the land on foot, Drori details his suffering from lack of food and water and an accident on a public bus that almost costs him his life. He brings readers into African war zones, including graphic descriptions of amputations in Sierra Leone where people, "slashed to pieces in the war," struggle to exist, as well as accounts of murders performed by children in Liberia.
Despite these dangerous adventures, Drori forsakes his native Israel, and the love of an Israeli woman, when he realizes he can't sit idly as endangered animals are slaughtered for bush meat. Drori launches an organization, the Last Great Ape, to help enforce anti-poaching laws that exist but are rarely implemented. The nerve-wracking rescues of chimps and gorillas are followed by months of red-tape and court appearances, but eventually LAGA brings an end to a fraction of the corruption rampant in East Africa. Drori's memoir juxtaposes an accurate account of Africa's natural beauty and the inhumane ways it is often treated with the story of one man determined to change things for the better. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer