Aidan Hartley

An epic narrative of the journalist who worked in Africa in the 1990s describes his childhood as the son of a British colonial officer; his witness to genocidal activities in Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda, and the Congo; and his discovery of a missing family friend's journals. Reprint.

A Story of Life, Love, and Death in Foreign Lands

The Zanzibar Chest

From the Samuel Johnson Prize shortlisted author, a powerful literary memoir about life in rural Nairobi, one of the last true wildernesses of the world. Aidan Hartley's family has always moved from farm to farm, propelled mostly across Africa, though once to Devon. Slowly, Aidan began to understand that his family's choice to live on farms was little to do with the business of agriculture. Their instinct and his inherited urge was to avoid other people and make a home in the lone, wild paradise. Farming became a state of mind, a fugitive one. Now, Aidan has his own farm in view of the Kenyan Mountain. His work is dosing sheep, dipping cattle, fixing machinery, responding to the night alarms of rustlers entering the valley on elephant raids. Living here, injury means relying on a manual called Where There is No Doctor, and the home medicine chest complete with blood coagulants for gunshot wounds. It is a landscape tragically at risk. Across the course of Aidan's life, before his eyes, the nature around him has changed. The wild hunting dog, cheetah, rhinos, elephants - even the giraffe and lion - face oblivion. Whole forests have been torn down. Kenya Mountain on the horizon is losing its tropical icefields - they will be gone in a handful of years. Paradise of Thorns is a restlessly inventive literary memoir: the story of Aidan's departure from cities and the irresistible call that pulled him back to the wilds. It is part glorious testament to the extraordinary heart of rural Africa as a place which is fast becoming lost, part antidote to the chicanery written about the country over the centuries, and part adventure story of drug trade, cattle raids, gunfights, lost friends, ambushes, posses and battles. a landscape tragically at risk. Across the course of Aidan's life, before his eyes, the nature around him has changed. The wild hunting dog, cheetah, rhinos, elephants - even the giraffe and lion - face oblivion. Whole forests have been torn down. Kenya Mountain on the horizon is losing its tropical icefields - they will be gone in a handful of years. Paradise of Thorns is a restlessly inventive literary memoir: the story of Aidan's departure from cities and the irresistible call that pulled him back to the wilds. It is part glorious testament to the extraordinary heart of rural Africa as a place which is fast becoming lost, part antidote to the chicanery written about the country over the centuries, and part adventure story of drug trade, cattle raids, gunfights, lost friends, ambushes, posses and battles.

Paradise of Thorns

Five years ago, after the senseless murder of his closest friend in Nairobi, Aidan Hartley packed up his bags and headed for the hills with his wife and young daughter. They bought a vast tract of dry land in Laikipia in Northern Kenya, with no fences, no phones, and no company other than the errant witchdoctor who cursed the dust of Aidan's footsteps. But it wasn't long before Aidan discovered that his patch of wilderness was full of life: not just the farmhands spending their wages on drink, weddings and funerals, but a whole procession of curious people who wanted something, or felt they needed to investigate. As Aidan and Claire struggled to build a farm from scratch, they had run-ins with leopards and elephants, and with their new neighbors. Aidan grew up on a farm in Tanzania and thought he had farming in his blood, but nothing prepared him for how hard life would be. But with the help of the locals, the farm developed, and all three of the family proved to have far more to learn from their neighbours than they had expected. Wild Life story is a remarkable book, by turns heartbreaking and wonderfully funny.

Adventures on an African Farm

Wild Life

A deeply affecting memoir of a childhood in Africa and the continent's horrendous wars, which Hartley witnessed at first hand as a journalist in the 1990s. Shortlisted for the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, this is a masterpiece of autobiographical journalism.

Aidan Hartley

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