An elephant never forgets - Sophy Roberts

This Monday night illustrated lecture will deliver behind-the-scenes insight into the four years of research Sophy Roberts undertook for her Sunday Times bestseller, A Training School for Elephants.

The journey, described by the Times as a "brilliantly researched account of an imperial fever dream" focuses on an extraordinary 1879 expedition which Roberts retraces, taking her to Belgium, Iraq, India, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Tanzania, finishing up at a tiny convent on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.

Her talk will include a fascinating dip into the Royal Geographical Society’s own London Collections.

About the speaker

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.