During his lifetime, Fritz, a resident of Nuremberg Zoo, was considered the oldest male gorilla in Europe. A biography has now been dedicated to him. It contains scenes of a monkey’s life that are touching – and stunned.
Of
Olaf Przybilla, Nuremberg
Portraits spanning two pages are in the Süddeutsche Zeitung not everyday, not even about outstanding francs. But when in the summer of 2018 the gorilla Fritz, who lived in Nuremberg and at the time the oldest gorilla man in Europe, passed away, that was the case. “The Patriarch” was the title of the SZ text, it documented a piece of zoo history. Four years later, a book about his 55-year life story has been published, “Fritz, the Gorilla” (Hirzel Verlag) it is called. A biography about a monkey, 226 pages long, does that hold up?