Overview

"In May of 2007, noted American poet and novelist and son of Holocaust refugees Michael Blumenthal went to South Africa to volunteer at C.A.R.E., a rehabilitation center for orphaned and injured baboons founded by Rita Miljo. Rita was a Lithuanian-born childhood member of the Hitler Youth who had gone on to have a life as adventure-filled as Beryl Markham's in West With the Night. ""A lot of people have asked me whether they could write 'my book, ' Rita wrote to Michael shortly thereafter, ""and I said no, because I was envisaging a story both sad and happy, but certainly mixed with a lot of humor. But if you asked me, I would not say no."" With that, for the only time in her life, Rita entrusted another human being with thirty years' worth of her journals, and a rare and unusual collaboration was born. Because They Needed Me is that story, a chronicle of primate conservation and the intrepid and courageous woman who devoted her life to it. It is like no other book of its kind."

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9780912887388

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"""[This is] a book about a remarkable woman and how she came to play a significant role in baboon conservation in South Africa. It is considerably enriched by Blumenthal's knowledge about baboon biology and his long-standing passion for nature, more particularly, primates. More than just an eloquent and absorbing story of a stalwart woman and her mission, it is about the fundamental ties between nature and human nature-- ties that are often ignored."" - Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation, University Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University and former Research Director of the World Wildlife Fund"

[This is] a book about a remarkable woman and how she came to play a significant role in baboon conservation in South Africa. It is considerably enriched by Blumenthal's knowledge about baboon biology and his long-standing passion for nature, more particularly, primates. More than just an eloquent and absorbing story of a stalwart woman and her mission, it is about the fundamental ties between nature and human nature-- ties that are often ignored. - Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation, University Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University and former Research Director of the World Wildlife Fund

Author Information

Michael Blumenthal, formerly Director of Creative Writing at Harvard, graduated from the Cornell Law School in 1974 and is currently Visiting Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Immigration Clinic at The West Virginia University College of Law. In his free time, he reads and thinks about primates of all sorts.

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