The Chimpanzee Whisperer
A Life of Love and Loss, Compassion and Conservation
A moving, heartwarming memoir about a conservation hero and real-life chimpanzee whisperer—now the subject of the award-winning documentary film Pant Hoot.
Stany Nyandwi’s gift for communicating with chimpanzees is so special that world-renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall has called him a “chimpanzee whisperer.” His skills and devotion to these creatures—our closest living relatives, with whom we share 98.7 percent of our DNA—have earned him international awards and sent him on travels within Africa and around the world. But he began life in poverty, born and raised in a dirt-floor, straw-roofed hut in rural Burundi. The Chimpanzee Whisperer is the story of his astonishing life journey.
It is also an African story. Receiving only an elementary education before he quit school, he suffered injustice and tragic loss because of his ethnic group. He began caring for orphaned and rescued chimps in Burundi. When the country descended into civil war and genocide, he was forced to flee with the chimps and endured long separation from his family. Continuing to work with and learn about chimpanzees in Kenya, Uganda, and later South Africa, he made himself into an incomparable authority.
His memoir has adventure, danger, and many unique and touching stories about chimpanzees that show his bond with and understanding of them. As told to award-winning author David Blissett, it reveals a remarkable man who has refused to let circumstances defeat him. Conditioned by hate, wounded by loss, he has lived for love, faith, and compassion, giving new life, as Dr. Jane Goodall writes in her foreword, “to so many chimpanzees whose families, like his own, were torn apart by violence.”
'It was clear from the start that he had a real gift for working with these creatures...He was able to communicate with them in a special way to the point that we called him a ‘chimpanzee whisperer.’..I hope you will be inspired by this life story of a gentle, unassuming African man whose devotion and sacrifice has given new life to so many chimpanzees whose families, like his own, were torn apart by violence.' — Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, from her foreword
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Stany Nyandwi is a leading chimpanzee caregiver and behavioral specialist, awarded and celebrated around the globe. He is currently the primate manager at the Jane Goodall Institute of South Africa Sanctuary, Chimp Eden. In 2019 Stany was the subject of the multi-award-winning short documentary, Pant Hoot, which also features Dr. Jane Goodall. He lives in Uganda with his wife and eight children, four of whom they adopted.
David Blissett is an award-winning author of fiction as well as numerous nonfiction works, including Snake Catcher, cowritten with Tony Harrison; Our Primate Family, cowritten with primate expert and conservationist Lou Grossfeldt; and Reflections of Elephants, with photographer Bobby-Jo Clow. He lives in Sydney, Australia.
Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, is world-renowned for her trailblazing work studying chimpanzee behavior in the wild. She founded the Gombe Stream Research Center in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, and the Jane Goodall Institute for Wild Life Research, Education, and Conservation and is the author of many books. Among her honors is appointment as a UN Messenger of Peace.
