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Sign up todayThe Last Unicorn
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Learn moreAn award-winning author's quest to find and understand a creature as rare and enigmatic as any on Earth.
In 1992, in a remote mountain range, a team of scientists discovered the remains of an unusual animal with exquisite long horns. It turned out to be a living species new to Western science -- a saola, the first large land mammal discovered in fifty years.
Rare then and rarer now, a live saola had never been glimpsed by a Westerner in the wild when Pulitzer Prize finalist and nature writer William deBuys and conservation biologist William Robichaud set off to search for it in central Laos. Their team endured a punishing trek up and down white-water rivers and through mountainous terrain ribboned with the snare lines of armed poachers who roamed the forest, stripping it of wildlife.
In the tradition of Bruce Chatwin, Colin Thubron, and Peter Matthiessen, The Last Unicorn chronicles deBuys's journey deep into one of the world's most remote places. It's a story rich with the joys and sorrows of an expedition into undiscovered country, pursuing a species as rare and elusive as the fabled unicorn. As is true with the quest for the unicorn, in the end the expedition becomes a search for something more: the essence of wildness in nature, evidence that the soul of a place can endure, and the transformative power of natural beauty.
William deBuys is the author of eight books, including River of Traps, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Pulitzer Prize nonfiction finalist; Enchantment and Exploitation; The Walk (an excerpt of which won a Pushcart Prize in 2008); and A Great Aridness. He lives in New Mexico.
William deBuys is the author of eight books, including River of Traps, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Pulitzer Prize nonfiction finalist; Enchantment and Exploitation; The Walk (an excerpt of which won a Pushcart Prize in 2008); and A Great Aridness. He lives in New Mexico.
Reviews
"The book will appeal to nonfiction readers who enjoy learning about flora, fauna and people in parts of the world they'll likely never visit. It's comforting to know there are people like Robichaud and writers like deBuys who are committed to sharing their stories. It's even more comforting to know their efforts could result in helping preserve the wildness of this world and the survival of a species."โRob Merrill, Associated Press "Gripping and stylish.... DeBuys is an evocative writer."โDennis Drabelle, The Washington Post "The author dives deeper than any ecological treatise, showing readers the beauty of gibbon chatter and "blown-glass waterfalls" and the sheer emotional toil of losing these things. In the tradition of John McPhee and Wallace Stegner, deBuys offers a profoundly personal, richly atmospheric account of a place that the world would be poorer for losing."โTalea Anderson, Library Journal "It's fortunate that a first-hand account of such a unique voyage exists. That it's written by a storyteller as commanding and reflective as William deBuys, well, that's just plain lucky."โCarson Vaughan, Audubon "It would be an understatement to call a forest, in all its deep complexity, merely beautiful. The same goes for The Last Unicorn. As he tracks a living myth through the jungles of Laos, deBuys' eyes and ears miss nothing, and his poetic grace conveys everything. I haven't read a journey so epic, lyrical, and meaningful since Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard."โAlan Weisman, author of Countdown and The World Without Us "Read The Last Unicorn. The book is extremely important and reads like a novel. DeBuys brings things to life. He writes beautifully. The image of the saola remains alive in the reader's mind. Saola may be the last unicorn."โEvaggelos Vallianatos, The Huffington Post "Like Peter Matthiessen's 1978 The Snow Leopard (Viking), this is less an homage to an iconic species than a meditation on our compulsion to harry and hem in the wild."โBarbara Kiser, Nature One of Christian Science Monitor's 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2015One of Men's Journal's Best Books of 2015"The Last Unicorn is a book you simply must read. For one thing Bill deBuys has a real gift for storytelling. And this story, the quest for an animal that was driven to the point of extinction almost as soon as it was "discovered", is a true adventure. Bill's powerful prose leads us deep into the wilderness in an almost unknown part of the world. And it sends out a clarion call bidding us to redouble our efforts to save the last wild places and vanishing animals before it is utterly too late."โJane Goodall, Ph.D., DBE, Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace "Lyrical... An adventure tale and a meditation, an evocative read that makes clear why wild places matter and how difficult it will be to save them."โEmily Anthes, New York Times "Simultaneously an adventure story, a melancholy parable of the challenges of conservation in an increasingly crowded world, and an engaging introduction to the biota of a unique ecosystem... However intractable the human tendency to pillage our environments, deBuys and Robichaud show the strength of an opposite impulse -- to approach nature with wonder, knowledge, and a deep appreciation of beauty. DeBuys paints the disappearing landscapes of his journey with beautiful and evocative prose."