Finally, I host a gentleman author and he’s certainly one of a kind – a zookeeper author. Meet Gerald Durrell. He was born to an
English father and an Irish mother in Jamshedpur, India. His love affair
with animals began after a visit to the zoo. He maintains that the first word he could speak out was ‘zoo’. In fact he and
his wife, Jacquie, wrote only to collect funds for wildlife conservation. Yet he must have had a special gift considering he was shortlisted for the Nobel prize for Literature in 1961 and ’62, despite writing not being his first love.
My family
and other animals
After hisfather passed away the family moved to England and subsequently, when Gerry was
about 10, to the Greek Island of Corfu. If you’ve read his book My family and
other animals you know his life thereon.
His family became his subjects. Larry, Leslie, Margo, Gerry himself and their indomitable mother together created one of the funniest books I’ve ever read – the kind that makes you laugh out loud not just while you’re reading it but also later when a scene suddenly springs up in your memory and you cannot stop laughing. The book is the first part of a trilogy that includes Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods.
Life with a young animal lover at home is fraught with dangers for his family like finding a bunch of scorpions in a matchbox just as you’re about to light up your after dinner smoke or snakes in the bathtub after you’ve undressed for your bath. Obviously the book has generous doses of Corfu wildlife and you get to go on many a nature walk with Gerry.
His life in
his books
book Gerry was homeschooled by his brother Larry’s friends. In fact many
characters of the book were real and remained life-long friends like the Greek
doctor and scientist Theodore Stephanides. A number of his other books were
also based on his real life experiences like Beasts in my Belfry from the time
he worked as a junior keeper in a zoo or A zoo in my Luggage, when he couldn’t
find a site for his zoo and had already collected the animals.
A true
conservationist is often broke
father’s inheritance to finance his wildlife expedition and continued to go on
many more bringing back animals which he sold off to various zoos.
but those that needed to be saved. As a result he was soon broke. Worse, he
was black listed by the London zoo community because of a fallout with the
London zoo keeper and couldn’t find work. His writings came to his rescue while he worked at an aquarium.
His own zoo
He wasn’t
too happy with the way zoos were managed and decided to start his own. He founded
the Jersey Zoological park now called the Durrell Wildlife Park. If you’re a Durrell fan you might be interested in this site here that I stumbled upon.
Tomorrow’s author is an easy guess, dear readers. Peek into your early years and if you don’t find her there you’ve had a sad childhood indeed.
This post is part of the April A to Z Challenge, 2014 for the theme AMAZING AUTHORS.
Also linking to the Ultimate Blog Challenge.
