If You Like….
Since I have The Ashford Affair
— M.M. Kaye’s Death in Kenya
— Along similar lines, Elpeth Huxley’s Murder on Safari
— Personally, I’m a big fan of Huxley’s fictionalized narrative of her childhood in Kenya, The Flame Trees of Thika
— Sticking with the mystery theme, there are also Suzanne Arruda’s Jade Del Cameron mysteries, starting with Mark of the Lion
— I couldn’t leave out Chinua Achebe’s classic Things Fall Apart
Have you stumbled across any good novels set in Kenya?
Okay, I don’t have any awesome novels to suggest…but that being said, one of my favorite picture books is called “Owen and Mzee: The True Story of an Amazing Friendship.” It’s about a tortoise and a baby hippo who bonded after the hippo was rescued in a tsunami, and it was written by a dad and daughter who visited them in the zoo they are at in Kenya. I read this when I was 23–well before I had kids–and the tears were gushing out of my eyes when I read it. Totally worth a read:)
Well, it’s not a novel, but it’s an excellent book about Europeans in Africa, and what Africa was like in the early days of colonisation, when it was relatively unspoilt: West with the Night by Beryl Markham. She was one of the first female aviators.
I love all the books you’ve mentioned (except for the last, which I haven’t read). MM Kaye’s series of “Death in” books superbly capture what it was like for Englishmen and their families posted abroad between the wars.
Things fall apart was actually set in Nigeria, not Kenya. I also wanted to suggest the purple hibiscus by chimamanda ngozi adiche (for the girl in you),although it is also set in nigeria. A great book set in kenya has to be the river between by Ngugi WA thiongo. A sad love story but still beautiful