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With the perceptiveness and pluck that made her one of the 20th century's greatest war reporters, Gellhorn travelled west to east, alone, in 1962, in search of “real Africa”. During her quest she encountered societies trapped between ancient and modern, tribal rituals mingled with nascent democracy, remote desert dwellers, wildlife encounters (both terrifying and inspiring), incompetent guides, grim physical conditions and maddening travel arrangements. She took lifts in cars and planes, and steered herself around East Africa with Joshua, an amusingly lily-livered “driver”. Gellhorn's prose is woven with compassion and spiked with black humour. She doesn't suffer fools and is unafraid to express her frustration. Even when she feels she isn't experiencing her idea of “real Africa”, it's clear that she has flung herself wholly into its reality. The journey testified to her strength of character; her account of it is equally impressive. Even though she wrote it years afterwards, Gellhorn makes you feel as if you are travelling with her.
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Alongside a sharp curiosity, Martha Gellhorn's subtitle Five Journeys from Hell arouses a faint fear that her tone might be self-pitying. Fortunately she would never have permitted such indulgence. The longest section (130 pages) of this classic 1978 account of her toughest voyages describes a journey through Africa that seems “pure” to the modern reader, lacking communications, comforts, itineraries or a set route.