Delia Owens is an American wildlife scientist and bestselling author. In 1974 she went to live in the Central Kalahari of Botswana, where she conducted research on lions and brown hyenas which earned her a PhD from the University of California. This reserach formed the subject matter of three bestselling nonficion books which she co-authored, including Cry of the Kalahari (1984). From the Kalahari, she ventured to Zambia to set up a multi-award-winning project which continues to this day, partly funded by the Owens Foundation for Wildlife Conservation. Her first novel, Where the Crawdads Sing, is profoundly influenced by her research on female groups and the social life of mammals.
Delia Owens
Delia Owens
Where The Crawdads Sing
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Delia Owens
On the Role of Nature
Researching Hyenas
Delia Owens’ Cry Of The Kalahari
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Daisy Edgar-Jones
On Kya
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Delia Owens
On Writing Fiction
Delia Owens
On Writing Where The Crawdads Sing
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Delia Owens
On Kya and the Strength of Human Nature
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Delia Owens
On Finding Strength and The Success of Where the Crawdads Sing
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Delia Owens
On Exploring Human Behaviour Through Literary Genres
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Delia Owens
On Drawing From Life
Featured book by Delia Owens
Where The Crawdads Sing
Set in the 1950s and ’60s, the novel follows the adventures of the young Kya, who grew up isolated in the wild coastal marsh of North Carolina and finds herself accused of the murder of Chase Andrews, a local celebrity. Delia Owens draws from her research on female grouping in the social life of mammals to explore the character of a young girl forced to live in isolation and in search of human connections.
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Beloved
By Toni Morrison
Recommended by: Delia Owens
Publish Date: 1987 Awards: 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; 1988 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; 1988 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award; 1988 Melcher Book Award; 1988 Lyndhurst Foundation Award; 1988 Elmer Holmes Bobst Award
Inspired by the story of Margaret Garner, the novel is set in the aftermath of the American Civil War and follows Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, and her family as they live in a house haunted by what they believe…
West With The Night
By Beryl Markham
Recommended by: Delia Owens
Publish Date: 1942
A memoir of her exciting life, the book details Beryl Markham’s youth in East Africa, where she became a horse trainer and breeder and learnt to fly planes, becoming the first woman in Kenya to receive a commercial pilot’s license…
Never Cry Wolf
By Farley Mowat
Recommended by: Delia Owens
Publish Date: 1963
The book is an account of Mowat’s observation of wolves in subarctic Canada. Sent to Manitoba to study the dwindling population of caribou, Mowat spends his time among the wolf packs, finding that these creatures are not the bloodthirsty predators…