Woman in the Mists

by Farley Mowat

Book Overview

Deep in the volcano country of central Africa live some of the rarest, most intriguing animals on earth -- the mountain gorillas. Here, in the mist-shrouded forests, Dian Fossey courageously dedicated her life to studying them. Here she patiently waited until the luminous-eyed gorillas accepted her presence, hugged her, and loved her...while she fought for their survival against poachers, callous researchers, zoo collectors, and local bureaucrats. And here, surrounded by these enemies, she died, mysteriously and brutally murdered.

Now, one of the world's most respected naturalist writers draws for the first time ever on Dian Fossey's personal writings to reveal the true story of a magnificent obsession...one woman's enormous empathy for a highly intelligent, desperately endangered animal -- and how it ruled her life, her work, and her heart.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446387207
• ISBN13: 9780446387200
• Release Date: November 1988
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A wonderful story of one of the most fiery, brave women I can think of.

Farley Mowat does a beautiful job of telling Dian Fossey's story. I believe he honors her memory in a lovely way, while also remaining unbiased. Dr Fossey will forever be a role model to me.

A sympathetic portrait of a complicated woman

Another engrossing and fascinating Mowat title, another Mowat "must read", "Woman in the Mists" is the sympathetic biography of a woman whose work gave us a window into the world of the mountain gorilla, a species to whose protection and conservation she was devoted. By alternating excerpts from her diary entries and personal letters with his own descriptive text, Mowat brings Dian Fossey, a powerfully willed and often abrasive woman, to life. Her youthful years, young adulthood, her fateful meeting with Louis Leakey, her romantic involvements and disappointments, her first contacts with the gorillas and the years of her work and struggle are portrayed with humanity and affection. The tale is enormously enriched by her own words. She struggled indomitably against self-serving African bureaucrats, indigenous herdsmen and hunter-gatherers, antagonistic forces that gained strength against her in the fields of primatology and philanthropy, and her own gradually deteriorating health largely the result of a powerful smoking addiction. But her work and her happiness were plagued by male academics and agents of philanthropic organizations who got caught up in a web of calumny and distrust motivated by primatologists who were seriously bent out of shape by her abrasiveness and who felt they could avenge themselves by vilifying her, possibly abetted by society's undercurrent of misogyny. Had there been no vilification, she may never have been killed, as her fatal enemy, probably an African, no doubt took strength from knowing how much she was hated by, for example, the American and European agents of the Mountain Gorilla Project. Mowat provides the reader a chilling view of Fossey's victimization, but never identifies the sexist element which seems apparent to this male reviewer. Fossey survived all the victimization because of her extraordinary strength and a powerfully motivating love for the gorillas and the entire eden-like natural world in which she lived. She had serious blind spots: her obliviousness to her abrasiveness, her hatred for the National Park's Tutsi herders and pygmy hunter-gatherers, even before the latter began killing her beloved gorillas (whole gorilla family groups, in order to capture a single infant for the zoo trade and skulls for the tourist souvenir trade), and her (and Mowat's) use of the racist epithet "wog" with impunity toward Africans who she hated, though she shared genuine bonds of love with the Africans who worked with her as trackers and poaching patrollers, and evidenced no other racist feeling. Mowat's record of Fossey's life is a powerful, shocking, revealing and loving account.

A wonderful written book

Farley Mowat performed an excellent service when he wrote this book. Dian Fossey was a woman of great character, confidence, courage, determination, and conviction. Her life was lived for what she found to be a greater cause and the world is that much worse off without her. This book did an excellent job of showing the reader who Dian Fossey really was and what she really went through. I recommend it to anyone. It is well worth reading.

Through this book you feel that you know Dian Fossey.

This book gives a view of not only her work, but also her personal life. Farley Mowat mixes Dian Fossey's own diary with a story of her life. It is cleverly done and very interesting to read. If you have to do a report on her, you couldn't find a better, more interesting source.

This book protrayed Dian Fossey as a human being.

I liked Woman in the Mists very much. Mowat does a great job of protraying Fossey as a human, rather then a scientific researcher who was murdered. I would recomend this book to anyone who wants to read about a strong willed individual who refuses to back down under any and all hard conditions

fascinating insight

Fascinating insight into the life of Dian Fossey. Does not pull any punches. Describes how she walked the fine line between dedication and lunacy.