In June 1960, a faculty wife named Alzada Kistner and her husband David, a appealing entomologist, left their eighteen-month-old daughter in the care of relatives and began what was to be always a four-month medical expedition in the Belgian Congo. Three weeks after their appearance, the country was gripped with a violent revolution, trapping the Kistners in its midst. Despite having to discover their way out of several life-threatening circumstances, the Kistners were not to be dissuaded. An emergency about An Affair With Africa airlift by america Air Force brought them to safety in Kenya where they continuing their field function. Thus started three decades of journeys in science. In An Affair with Africa, Alzada Kistner details her family’s African experience-the five expeditions they had taken beginning with the trip to the Belgian Congo in 1960 and ending in 1972-73 with a nine-month excursion across southern Africa. From hunching over columns of ants for hours on end even though seven a few months pregnant to eating dinner next to Idi Amin, Kistner provides a lively and humor-filled account of the individual side of scientific discovery. Her wonderfully detailed stories clearly show why, despite hardship and danger-and contrary to all of society’s expectations-she cannot forsake accompanying her spouse on his expeditions, and, even today, continues to find the globe “endlessly beckoning, a lively bubbling cauldron of queries and intrigue.”

In the spirit of Beryl Markham’s West with the night time and Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa, An Affair with Africa shares with listeners the thoughts and experiences of a remarkable girl, one whose unquenchable thirst for adventure led her right into a series of nearly unimaginable situations. Listeners-from armchair travelers fascinated by stories of Africa to researchers familiar with the Kistners’ work but unacquainted with the measures to which they went to collect their data-will discover An Affair with Africa a rare treasure.