Alby Mangels: Beyond World Safari (The Authorized Biography)
Before Steve Irwin ever wrestled a crocodile and before Crocodile Dundee swaggered onto the big screen, there was Alby Mangels: the original Australian wild man, a self taught adventurer, film-maker and conservationist whose World Safari films sent an entire generation reaching for a backpack and a one way ticket. For more than a decade he was the most famous wanderer in the country, and then, almost as abruptly as he had arrived, he stepped out of the spotlight and into fifteen years of self imposed seclusion.
Now, finally agreeing to placate the diehard fans who never stopped asking what had become of him, Alby has broken that long silence and is speaking out like never before. "Beyond World Safari" is his full, frank and authorized biography, written by the acclaimed author and wildlife conservationist Lynn Santer, and it is the first time he has opened up about the whole sweep of his remarkable life.
The man behind the legend
Plenty of myths and misconceptions grew up around Alby across those quiet years, yet he was anything but idle. He has since put his name to no fewer than eighty wildlife and environmental documentaries, screened internationally over the past decade, several of which drew some of the highest ratings ever recorded on the Discovery Channel in the United States. He built a native wildlife sanctuary on his pristine hideaway property in rural South Australia, giving something back to the natural world that had given him so much. And after a terrible accident nearly left him unable to walk again, he found a new spiritual path of peace and acceptance, a quieter kind of adventure than the one his fans remember.
Why Lynn Santer, and why now?
Two questions naturally arise. Why did Alby choose Lynn Santer, above any other writer in the world, to tell his deeply personal story, and why tell it now? The two first met when Lynn was organizing the World Wildlife Fund's twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations in Australia at Dreamworld, where she has a long standing association with the park's Endangered Tiger Fund. As both an accomplished author and a conservationist who has been winning awards for her animal welfare work since the age of eleven, Lynn was exactly the kind of kindred spirit who could earn Alby's trust.
Like so many people, Lynn had heard of the legend of Alby Mangels decades earlier, yet in truth she had never watched a single one of his films. That changed the day he sat her down and told her everything: the poverty and hardship of his childhood, his restless dreams, his hunger for the open road, his fierce love of the natural world, his dazzling rise to the giddy heights of hero worship, and his fall back to earth when his empire, his dreams and his reputation were shattered by a run of gut wrenching disasters. Lynn's heart went out to him, and her instinct as a writer ached to share his story with the world.
What you will find inside
"Beyond World Safari" is a tell-all in the truest sense, a portrait of the man, the myth and the magic of Alby Mangels that will leave you gasping for breath, crying with laughter, weeping at the tragedies and cheering at his triumph against all odds. It is generously illustrated with 135 colour photographs, many of them never published before, drawn from a life lived almost entirely on the move. Whether you grew up taping World Safari off the television or you are meeting Alby for the very first time, it is a genuinely moving and unforgettable read about one of the truly great adventurers of our time.
If World Safari first lit your wanderlust, this is the book that finally tells the whole story behind the legend.
