“Jeffrey Gettleman’s spectacular book is far more than a memoir. Gettleman is a rare combination of dogged reporter and very fine writer, and as I read his book I kept catching myself wondering whether it was too late to go back and lead his life rather than my own.”
“When Gettleman discovers his true passions, he grabs hold and doesn’t let go. Love, Africa offers a key to understanding humankind’s past and future and a key to understanding our hearts.”
“Gettleman’s memoir of his life, his love and the excitement and perils of journalism is a page-turner. A tremendous read. I couldn’t put it down.”
“Rarely do you read such beautifully rendered honesty: witness the eyes and heart of Jeffrey transform into a remarkable person and writer for our time.”
“A passionate debut memoir.”
From Jeffrey Gettleman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist, comes a very personal, revealing story about finding love and finding a calling, set against one of the most turbulent regions in the world.
A seasoned war correspondent, Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past twenty years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for The New York Times, fulfilling a teenage dream. Love, Africa is the multi-layered, visceral and fast-moving story of chasing down that dream and being torn by different loves.
At nineteen, Gettleman fell in love for the first time—twice. On a do-it-yourself community service trip in college, he went to East Africa, a terrifying, dreamlike part of the world in the throes of seismic change that imprinted itself on his imagination and heart. “I had been dazzled by my first hit," he writes, "captivated by the spirit, the energy, the differences, the feel." This trip would define his life. More
My interest in Africa was a bit of a fluke. I wasn’t one of those precocious kids toying with atlases or globes at a tender age. When Joseph Conrad was a little boy, the story goes, he pointed to a map of Africa and declared: "When I grow up, I’m going there." When I was a little boy, I pointed my finger into my nose and declared I was going to be... More
For his vivid reports, often at personal peril, on famine and conflict in East Africa, a neglected but increasingly strategic part of the world. More
