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The Flame Trees Of Thika

The Flame Trees Of Thika

Author(s): Elspeth Huxley

Location(s): Kenya

Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs

Era(s): Early 20th Century

Location

Content

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.

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Book Reviews

Lead Review

Still has relevance today. Beautifully written it tells of life in East Africa in a period of flux

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