Author: Wing, Stephen

Ages ago, deep in the African jungle, our human ancestors split off from the bloodline that would evolve into our cousin the chimpanzee. Ever since, homo sapiens has been busy evolving an intelligence and culture far superior to those of our wild relatives. - r have we??In this gently humorous, thought-provoking novel, as the ecological impact of human "intelligence and culture" grows increasingly clear, the evolutionary paths of chimps and humans are about to converge once more, millions of years after we parted ways!?Kumbu is a circus chimp, kidnapped in infancy from his family in Central Africa, who now performs on the trapeze under the stage name "Ralph." Wilbur Trimble is an American janitor, fulfilling his lifelong dream of an African safari, who gets lost in the jungle one night and rescued by a family of chimps . . . who happen to be Kumbu's relatives. When the chimpanzees discover that through a rare evolutionary mutation Wilbur bears "The Gift" - the ability to communicate telepathically, as they do - they commission him to rescue Kumbu from the circus, and the evolution of both species takes a quantum jump forward. ?Evolution may never be the same! (Printed on recycled paper.)