The Roots of Heaven (novel)

The Roots of Heaven (Les Racines du ciel) is a 1956 novel by the Lithuanian-born French writer and WW II aviator, Romain Gary (born Roman Kacew). It received the Prix Goncourt for fiction. It was translated into English in 1957. The book takes place in French Equatorial Africa. Morrel, a crusading environmentalist, labors to preserve elephants from extinction. He is assisted in the task by Minna, a nightclub hostess, and Forsythe, a disgraced British military officer in search of redemption. The story is a metaphor for the quest for salvation for all humanity. John Huston directed and Darryl Zanuck produced a 1958 Hollywood film of the same title.