Marina Chapman

Marina Chapman (born circa 1950) is a Colombian-British woman known for her claim to have spent much of her early childhood in the jungle, alone except for a colony of capuchin monkeys.^[1][2]

Personal life[edit]

Chapman was born sometime in the early 1950s, during a time in Colombia known as La Violencia where in one year four-million children were kidnapped. Chapman states that as a child, she was one of those, taken from her village (whose name she was too young to have learned), and then abandoned into the jungle for a reason she did not understand.^{[citation needed]} She says that she spent the next several years following capuchin monkeys, surviving by copying their ways, until hunters rescued her (or hunted her out) at which point she had no human language. According to Chapman, she later was sold to a brothel in Cúcuta, but they expelled her as she was too feral. She then lived on the streets, and subsequently became a slave of a mafia family.^[3]

A neighbour, Maruja, rescued her and sent her to Bogotá to live with one of her daughters. Maruja's daughter Maria adopted Marina when she was approximately 14.^[3] This family had connections to the city of Bradford in Yorkshire, England, through the textile industry, and in 1977 sent their children there with Chapman to be their nanny.^[2]

Chapman currently lives in Bradford.^[3] She married a scientist from the area,^[2] with whom she has two daughters.^[2][4]

Analysis[edit]

Carlos Conde, a professor in Colombia, stated that he performed a test using pictures of Chapman's adopted family and capuchin monkeys that strongly suggested that Chapman was telling the truth. The University of London psychology professor Chris French argued that Chapman may be affected by false memories.^[2]

In popular culture[edit]

National Geographic created the documentary Woman Raised By Monkeys. It premiered on Thursday 12 December 2013.^[5]

Chapman collaborated on her autobiography The Girl With No Name (published 2013 by Mainstream Publishing), with the help of her musician daughter Vanessa Forero and writer Lynne Barrett-lee.^[6][2] Chapman and her daughter both appeared on BBC Breakfast Time in 2013^[7] to promote the book which had initially been rejected by several publishers because they suspected it was not authentic, but it went on to be published internationally.^[3][8]

Kate McKinnon performed a satirical impression of Chapman on the Weekend Update segment of the April 13, 2013 episode of Saturday Night Live.^[9][10][11]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Audio interview with Chapman, on Q
• Chapman, Marina (2012). The Girl With No Name: The True Story of a Girl Who Lived with Monkeys. Greystone Books. ISBN 978-1-77100-118-2. OCLC 896845666.
• King, Barbara J. King (8 June 2014). "The Girl Who Was Raised By Monkeys?". NPR.org.
• "Marina Chapman". Andrew Lownie Literary Agency.