A witty and intelligent memoir of the adventures, discoveries, rescues and narrow escapes of Gellhorn, one of America's most important war correspondents and the third wife of Ernest Hemingway.
A witty and intelligent memoir of the adventures, discoveries, rescues and narrow escapes of Gellhorn, one of America's most important war correspondents and the third wife of Ernest Hemingway.
Out of a lifetime of travelling, Martha Gellhorn has selected her "best horror journeys". She bumps through rain-sodden, war-torn China to meet Chiang Kai-Shek, floats listlessly in search of u-boats in the wartime Caribbean and visits a dissident writer in the Soviet Union against her better judgement. Written with the eye of a novelist and an ironic black humour, what makes these tales irresistible are Gellhorn's explosive and often surprising reactions. Indignant, but never righteous and not always right, through the crucible of hell on earth emerges a woman who makes you laugh with her at life, while thanking God that you are not with her.
"one of the funniest travel books of our time" Dervla Murphy
Martha Gellhorn was born in 1908 in St Louis Missouri, the perfect place for a travel writer she felt, because people were always trying to get away from it. She died at the age of 89 in London having reported on almost every conflict from the Spanish Civil War to the disintegration of Yugoslavia. In her late 80s she researched and wrote an excoriating expose of the evils perpetrated on South American street children. Gellhorn wanted to be remembered as a novelist and wrote 11 books of fiction, and only three non-fiction books.
This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.