Elspeth Huxley

A biography of the renowned writer, broadcaster, conservationist and chronicler of colonial Kenya, Elspeth Huxley, who achieved worldwide fame with her memoir The Flame Trees of Thika (1959). Elspeth married Gervas, a grandson of Thomas Huxley and cousin to Julian and Aldous Huxley, whom she knew well. The author, Christine Nicholls, had access to all her letters and papers, and is familiar with many of the people and places in the book.

"In an open cart Elspeth Huxley set off with her parents to travel to Thika in Kenya. As pioneering settlers among the Kikuyu people, they built a house of grass, ate off a damask cloth spread over packing cases and discovered - the hard way - the world of the African."

When Elspeth Huxley’s pioneer father buys a remote plot of land in Kenya, the family sets off to discover their new home: five hundred acres of Kenyan scrubland, infested with ticks and white ants, and quavering with heat. What they lack in know-how they make up for in determination: building a grass house, employing local Kikuyu tribe members and painstakingly transforming their patch of wilderness into a working farm. Huxley’s unforgettable childhood memoir is a sensitive account of settler life at the turn of the twentieth century and a love song to the harshness and beauty of East Africa.

In this sequel to The Flame of Thika, Elspeth Huxley takes up her story after the family returns to Kenya after the First World War. Her family and friends, their home and their travels, the glorious wildlife and scenery, described in rich and loving detail, all spring to life in this enchanting book. 'She knows East Africa and she loves it. . . with a critical and understanding sympathy. ' The Times 'What a marvellous writer. . . and what a Kenya it was. ' Financial Times

This is a biography of the renowned writer, broadcaster, conservationist and chronicler of colonial Kenya, Elspeth Huxley, who achieved worldwide fame with her memoir 'The Flame Trees of Thika' in 1959.

Set in a farming community in 1930s colonial East Africa.

Olivia Brandeis, a young anthropologist, could sense that trouble was brewing at Government House in the African colony of Chania. Eventually her suspicions are confirmed when the Governor, Sir Malcolm Macleod, is found strangled at his desk. And when the identity of the murderer is indicated, a terrifying series of vicious events ensues.