African greenheart

WANGARI MAATHAI is an environmentalist, a feminist and a brave daughter of Kenya. The Nobel peace prize she won in 2004 highlighted the links between the green and feminist movements in Africa. It also gave rise to this memoir.

Ms Maathai was born in 1940. Her first meal was traditional Kikuyu fare: yam, banana and lamb chewed soft by her mother. Missionary Christianity—Italian Catholic and Scottish Presbyterian—had already replaced many of the other Kikuyu traditions. Schools taught children to read and write; a new form of magic that overshadowed the old.