Growing up in Kenya in the early twentieth century, the brothers Matu and Muthegi are raised according to customs that, they are told, have existed since the beginning of the world. But when the 'red' strangers come, sunburned Europeans who seek to colonize their homeland, the lives of the two Kikuyu tribesmen begin to change in dramatic new ways. Soon, their people are overwhelmed by unknown diseases that traditional magic seems powerless to control. And as the strangers move across the land, the tribe rapidly finds itself forced to obey foreign laws that seem at best bizarre, and that at...

The extraordinary adventures of a childhood in Africa, recalled in rich and loving detail.
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."

Elspeth Huxley captivated readers throughout the world with her 'memories of an African childhood' in "The Flame Trees of Thika" and "The Mottled Lizard". In this final volume of her trilogy she tells the story of her adult life in Africa, in which the vigorously evoked personalities - from the pioneer Lord Delamere and Baroness Blixen to Jomo Kenyatta - blend with her superb description of the social, cultural and political upheavals of the time. 'An accomplished story-teller, she weaves anecdotes, character sketches, political history together without losing her thread or the readers...