The ensuing publicity led to the memoir's republication and, today, it's considered a classic book on adventure and the outdoors. 'But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen,' Hemingway famously wrote. She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. 'Did you read Beryl Markham's book, West with the Night?. The book remained out of print until the early 1980s-by which point Markham had returned to Africa and racehorse training, but was living in poverty-when a series of rediscovered letters brought it back into the spotlight. The person behind the correspondence? Ernest Hemingway, whom Markham had met while scouting game in 1934. But even though it was a literary success upon its release, it was soon dwarfed by the chaos of World War II. Published in 1942, West with the Night is Markham's own account of her Kenyan childhood, her equine career, and her aviation achievements. And while fuel-related issues forced Markham to land in Nova Scotia and not her planned New York destination, it was still an accomplishment that catapulted her and her subsequent memoir to global fame.īeryl Markham passed away in 1986 at the age of 83. Five years later, she completed her record-breaking, east-to-west solo flight across the Atlantic, securing her place in the aviatrix hall of fame alongside Amelia Earhart. Thanks to the influence of two pilots-her instructor, Tom Campbell Black, and her sometimes-lover, Denys Finch Hatton-Beryl became a pilot herself in 1931.

At 17, she even became the first woman to obtain an official horse training license in Africa.īut her greatest claim to fame was yet to come. In the town of Nojoro, she developed an insatiable hunger for adventure-forming a vibrant daily routine of horse-riding, spear-hunting, and playing with a young Kipsigis warrior. Abandoned by her mother at the age of four, she moved from England to Kenya-where her horse trainer father set up his own farm. When it comes to fascinating lives, Beryl Markham's is particularly novel-worthy.

West with the Night by Beryl Markham