Eden's Exiles. One soldier's fight for paradise by Breytenbach, Jan

(Cape Town: Queillerie, 1997) 1874901244. 8vo; original green boards, lettered in white on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. (iv) + 259; map; colour plates. Dustwrapper slightly rubbed, and sunned on spine panel; sporadic foxing. Good to very good condition. "Breytenbach tells the story of how he, both a military leader and a nature conservation officer, together with his men, witnessed with increasing alarm the collusion between elements of his own South African Defence Force and Angolan rebel movement, Unita, to smuggle lucrative ivory and rhino horn, using secretly sanctioned conduits through the Republic of South Africa to the Far East. And not only that, but also the large-scale eradication of wildlife through illegal hunting by high-ranking politicians and their senior comrades-in-arms. This book is about Breytenbach's futile struggle against these forces until he was recalled to Pretoria, thus himself becoming one of Eden's exiles. But above all, it is a heart-warming, heart-breaking story of friendship between man and beast. Of military men tenderly rearing three lions and a leopard. Of joy, playfulness, humor and, ultimately, loss." .