Love, Africa: A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival
Author(s): Jeffrey Gettleman
From Jeffrey Gettleman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist, comes a passionate, revealing story about finding love and finding a calling, set against one of the most turbulent regions in the world.
A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey 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 his teenage dream of living in Africa. Love, Africa is the story of how he got there--and of his difficult, winding path toward becoming a good reporter and a better man.
At nineteen, Gettleman fell in love, twice. On a community service trip in college, he went to Africa--a terrifying, exciting, dreamlike continent in the throes of change that imprinted itself on his imagination and heart. One day, he vowed, he would return there to stay. But around the same time he also fell in love with Courtenay, a fellow Cornell student--the brightest, fiercest, kindest woman he'd ever met.
Courtenay became a lawyer in America, and all Gettleman wanted was to be with her. But he also hungered to be in Africa. For the next decade he would waver between these two abiding passions. Finally, after a great deal of growing up, he learned to be honest with himself about what he wanted--a realization that ultimately fulfilled both of his deepest desires.
A beautifully rendered coming-of-age story in the tradition of Barbarian Days, Love, Africa is a tale of passion, professional rivalries, tortuous long-distance relationships, marital strife, forgiveness, parenthood, and happiness that explores the power of finding yourself in the most unexpected of places.
Product Information
"A passionate debut memoir bears witness to political turmoil... A stark, eye-opening, and sometimes horrifying portrait by a reporter enthralled by the `power and magic' of Africa." -- Kirkus "[Gettleman's] beautifully written memoir is about many kinds of love...The path to love is not always straight, but 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." -- Sheryl Sandberg "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." -- Ishmael Beah "Gettleman's memoir of his life, his love, and the excitement and perils of journalism is a page-turner. The portrait of Africa that emerges is disturbing, tender, and harsh. .... A tremendous read. I couldn't put it down." -- Abraham Verghese "Jeffrey Gettleman's memoir is truly, in all its complicated tragic beauty, a love story made up itself of inextricably intertwined love stories. I was mesmerized." -- Alexandra Fuller "To feel the fear, sinfulness, and rapture of being a foreign correspondent, read this book! Using self-lacerating truth and high velocity prose, Jeffrey Gettleman has written a compulsively readable new story about what it means to be `our man in Africa.'" -- Blaine Harden "Jeffrey Gettleman has true grit. That's why he was in my book, and why you have to read his.'' -- Angela Duckworth "...[Gettleman] takes readers... into the most terrifying and beguiling continent in the world....Gettleman is a rare combination of dogged reporter and very fine writer...I kept catching myself wondering whether it was too late to go back and lead his life rather than my own ." -- Sebastian Junger "[An] exciting, harrowing memoir that aptly displays why [Gettleman's] a Pulitzer Prize winner and a New York Times bureau chief.... there's a thrilling immediacy and attention to detail in Gettleman's writing that puts the reader right beside him...Gettleman's memoir is an absolute must-read." -- Booklist (starred review)
General Fields
- :
- : HarperCollins Publishers
- : 0.294835
- : April 2018
- : 203mm X 135mm X 20mm
- : United States
- : April 2018
- : books
Special Fields
- : Jeffrey Gettleman
- : Paperback
- : English
- : 070.92 B
- : 368