Elspeth Huxley byla plodná autorka, jejíž díla čerpala především z jejích rozsáhlých zkušeností v koloniální Keni. Její psaní se vyznačuje hlubokým zájmem o africký rozvoj a promyšleným zkoumáním života bílých osadníků i afrických obyvatel. Huxley obratně proplouvala mezi fikcí a non-fikcí, přičemž se její literární kariéra rozprostírala do více než šedesáti let. Díky svému agrárnímu a novinářskému zázemí se stala významnou interpretkou Afriky pro vnější svět, ačkoli sama uznávala omezení takové role. Její díla jsou ceněna pro schopnost zachytit komplexnost mezikulturních vztahů, a to i přes dobovou kritiku jejích rasových postojů, které byly typické pro její generaci a koloniální identitu.
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.
"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."
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. ' The Times 'What a marvellous writer. ' Financial Times
This exquisitely beautiful series of books portrays the cultures, landscapes, fauna, flora and history of an individual country with over 150 stunning photographs and well-written and knowledgeable text. To nineteenth-century Europeans, they were the "noblest savages, " an elite corps of painted and feathered warriors, strangely aristocratic in their disdain of other people's civilization. For the Maasai, nothing has proved an inducement to change during the last 100 years: not peace for war; money for cattle; nor cities and settlement for the plains and open boundaries of their land covering much of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania.
In this marvelous anthology, Elspeth Huxley, our best and most popular writer on Africa, has drawn on her unparalleled knowledge of Kenya and its literature to present a fully rounded portrait of one of the most fascinating countries in the world. In nine sections focusing on exploration, travel, settlement, war, hunting, wildlife, environment, life-styles, and legend and poetry, using only first-hand accounts, she guides the reader through the story of Kenya from AD100 to the present with her characteristic candour and directness.
