The Elephant Within Us By Peter Peeters

A beguiling tale of transformation, romance and environmental politics

Dr John Garfinger is a penniless, jobless about-to-be divorcee, a man with an unwarranted reputation for philandering and a hapless knack for getting himself into embarrassing situations. In desperation he goes to East Africa to start a new life working on a remote elephant reserve - even though he knows nothing about elephants.

But this is Africa where things never quite go to plan. By a bizarre turn of events, the naïve young doctor of biotechnology soon finds himself embroiled in the strange goings-on in a private laboratory where a half-mad German scientist is working on a very unusual time machine. Then John complicates things by falling in love...

Part sci-fi fantasy, part farce, The Elephant Within Us is a beguiling tale of transformation, romance and environmental politics and a fascinating foray into the world of the elephant.

Dr Peter Peeters was born in Belgium where he studied and specialised in high-energy physics. He worked at Brussels University in collaboration with CERN, the European accelerator centre in Geneva, and carried out research at the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States. He has travelled throughout the world and spent a year in Africa with his wife making documentary films, criss-crossing the continent, sleeping in bush and forest in their Land Rover. Dr Peeters has written several non-fiction titles concerned with the future of humanity and the planet. His latest are The Four Phases of Society (1997) and The Global Economy and its Long-Term Future (2008). This is his first novel, and he currently lives in Spain.

FACTFILE:
A witty, entertaining novel that will appeal to readers of the likes of David Lodge and Alexander McCall Smith

The Belgian writer has an intriguing backstory: a doctor of high energy physics and an inveterate global traveller who spent a year in Africa

Peter Peeters is a well-established and respected non-fiction author

£14.99
Hardback

978-1-84624-638-8

Publication date: 27th January 2011