Leopard Aware is the highly original story by Richard Adams that kicks off the collection of very special stories featured in Gentle Footprints.
Richard Adams is best known for his best selling novel Watership Down, first published in 1972 and now a classic. Although the novel won the Guardian Prize for Children the novel is a literary masterpiece that appeals to adults and children alike.
His career spans four decades of fiction writing with novels and short stories. Here at Bridge House Publishing we are very honoured to feature Richard Adams as our guest author.
As a supporter of animal causes for many years he reemphasised to me the need to educate and inform and that is what we hope this collection will do. It's not just about beautiful stories but about conservation and the message that animals belong in the wild.
Writing about wild animals in an adult collection is more of a challenge than people might realise. We are all familiar with the speaking animals in children's literature but what we wanted was a more realistic portrayal, retaining a sense of wildness of the animal. We received a huge variety of submissions and it was a difficult selection but I had in mind what I wanted and we got it!
But of all the stories the one that seems to be a stream of consciousness in the head of an animal is Richard Adams's story Leopard Aware
He told me imagines that animals do not think as we do and are driven by basic instincts. In this new story (written as Richard Adams is about to turn ninety years old on May 9th, we catch a glimpse of a leopard hunting. It's very poetic and is very different from anything else we received or included in Gentle Footprints
I wil finish with a sneak preview for those that have not seen it yet...
Time passes slowly I creep creep but now THING now THING stop, alarmed, and sniff sniff I all drooling expectation now. Mustn’t make least noise O BLAST CRACKLE STICKS CRACKLE O BLAST STICKS UNDER ME STOP THING WARNED THING gets message THING turns turns now run. All long legs long legs all clutter of legs but for me all dash out dash out towards THING dash DASH now nothing nothing but THING all running leaping away and I running empty belly says FASTER but THING FASTER TOO I leap nothing but faster faster and THING faster but faster faster faster and THING faster but now I closer can smell THING but can smell its smell, hear its breath I am nothing but hurtling leaping claws out leap not far enough. Soft soil under claws THING AH THING SLOWER now again I’m LEAPING AH CLAWS INTO SOFT FUR THING’S fur on flank and claws cling cling smell of BLOOD THING’S BLOOD THING struggles but slower slower now THING STUMBLING falls on side and I panting growling onto it all noise nothing but noise nothing but biting bloody biting. BLOOD WARM TASTE BLOOD SHLOOP DRIBBLE ALL PLEASURE GNAW TEAR GULP.
Copyright Richard Adams, Gentle Footprints, Bridge House Publishing
Tomorrow Leopard Facts
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