Margarete Trappe was Africa’s first full-time female professional hunter, and the only woman spy in the East African theatre of World War 1. Her remarkable story is the subject of the latest book from Fiona Claire Capstick, author of the award-winning The Diana Files: The Huntress — Traveller Through History.
Born in Germany in 1884, the young Margarete was brought up sharing the dream of her father Karl to hunt and explore in German East Africa. Her father died in 1901, but the dream didn’t — when lieutenant Ulrich Trappe proposed marriage, Margarete only accepted on condition he got a transfer to Africa. Instead, he resigned and decided to try his hand at farming. The couple arrived in German East Africa in 1907, trekking to the foothills of Mount Meru, where they subsequently developed a successful farm and raised a family.
Colonel Gadaffi’s Hat is both a gripping and deeply moving account of the Libyan uprising from the lone journalist who was able to report from the rebel army convoy that captured Green Square, in the heart of Tripoli.
Alex Crawford’s daring reports were beamed across news networks from around the globe, and against a dramatic backdrop of celebratory gunfire, Alex and her team showed the world the final symbolic moments of the fall of a regime that had held power for more than 40 years.
The euphoria and chaos of that atmosphere of jubilation was soon overcome by the realities of conflict, and the story of the following days that Alex so viscerally tells in this remarkable account is an eye-opening journey full of human stories that are both shocking and touching.
A portrait of the last gasps of Gaddafi’s regime, Crawford’s book is an extraordinary insight into modern political conflict and the nature of journalism. The first journalist to be on the scene at a number of key points in the Libyan conflict, Alex has been arrested, shot at, tear gassed and interrogated in the course of her career, and paints a fascinating picture of war journalism.
A heart-stopping ride through a dramatic moment in modern history, Colonel Gadaffi’s Hat is a window into both the craft of journalism and the amazing story of Libya’s road to Freedom.
About the author
Alex Crawford was brought up in Nigeria and Zambia, and started her journalism career at the Wokingham Times, before moving to the BBC, and eventually Sky News. She is the Sky News Special Correspondent covering the Gulf and the Middle East. She is the only journalist to have won the Royal Television Society’s Journalist of the Year Award three times, and was recently awarded the prestigious James Cameron Memorial Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to journalism. Alex lives in Johannesburg with her husband and four daughters.
Alexander Matthews of Business Day’s Wanted recently spoke with Gaile Parkin about her new novel When Hoopoes Go to Heaven. In the frank discussion, the author of Baking Cakes in Kigali, also expresses concern about the lives of the people of Swaziland, under the rule of Africa’s last absolute monarch:
Ahdaf Soueif is probably best known to local readers as the author of the glorious novel, The Map of Love . But elsewhere, she is a well-known and respected commentator and journalist, and was a long-standing and liberal opponent of Hosni Mubarak’s regime in Egypt, dividing her time between London and Cairo.
On her visit to South Africa, Elaine Proctor, who now lives in the UK, was interviewed on SAfm and Radio Today. Proctor spoke about her book Rhumba, which deals with Congolese immigrants in London, human trafficking and the “music of encounters” that is rhumba music.
Listen to Sue Grant-Marshall’s interview with Proctor for her Reading Matters show on Radio Today:
Verdict: carrot
Apr
