NEXT OF KIN

My Conversations With Chimpanzees

by Roger Fouts with Stephen Mills

For thirty years Roger Fouts pioneered communication with chimpanzees through sign language—beginning with a high-spirited, unforgettable chimp named Washoe. Fouts’s groundbreaking work with chimpanzees, who share more than ninety-eight percent of our DNA, made scientific history.

This remarkable book tells the dramatic story of Fouts’s odyssey from novice researcher to celebrity scientist to impassioned crusader for the rights of animals. At the heart of the story is his magical decades-long friendship with Washoe, whom we watch grow from a mischievous baby chimp fresh out of the NASA space program into the matriarch of a clan of chimpanzees who fill these pages with tales of humor and heartbreak, loyalty and love. Living and conversing with these sensitive creatures has given Fouts a profound appreciation of how much we share with our closest biological relatives, and what they can teach us about ourselves. It also made him—at significant risk to his own career—an outspoken opponent of biomedical experimentation on chimpanzees.

Next of Kin is a voyage of scientific discovery and interspecies communication unlike any that has come before. This stirring tale of friendship, courage, and compassion will change forever the way we view our biological—and spiritual—next of kin.