Beryl Markham was an extraordinary lady. She could train race horses to perfection, track lions and elephants, and speak Swahili with the natives. She was the first person to fly the Atlantic solo westbound. She was also an extraordinary writer.Her autobiography, West With The Night is one of the best books I have listened to in a long time. The cassette version is ably read by Julie Harris. Several of the passages were so striking that we listened to them more than once. I particularly like the time she and famous hunter Bror Blixen faced down an elephant in the African bush.
She was born in England almost nothing is told of her mother - and followed her father to British East Africa where, it seems, she was allowed to pretty much "run with the natives." She learned many of their hunting and tracking skills, not to mention their language, but once grown the racial biases of her 1920's white heritage had taken hold. She remarks with only a small sense of regret that native children she formerly had played side-by-side with, now had to walk behind her.
She tells her life with such understatement that you may want to read one of the biographies that have appeared since the 50th anniversary of her historic flight.
