The Zanzibar Chest

"The Zanzibar Chest – these first three books are all about people doing good in the world. This time the author, Aidan Hartley, worked for Reuters as a freelancer for many years. He has an interesting family history: his father lived in Yemen and I was lent Aidan’s book by a Yemeni general, who recommended it to me. It’s two stories in a way: Aidan’s reporting in Africa, including Rwanda – serious crisis reporting – and then the story of this friend of his father’s, Peter Davey, a British diplomat who practically went native in Yemen and who died in mysterious circumstances. They’re almost two different stories and they possibly don’t even belong in the same book, but I love the book. There’s so much material from Aidan’s journalism, a lot of it horrific, a lot of it very personal. Aidan Hartley took a lot of drugs and slept with a lot of women, and if you’re a woman memoirist you’re going to find it harder to get away with that kind of material. But what I like about Aidan’s life is that he took major risks. He was right in the centre of the action and it really gives you a sense of what went on there, which you don’t necessarily get when you just read the papers. He talks about the effect of doing this war reporting on a relationship he’s having, and how, actually, his relationship is supported by the adrenaline of what he’s doing and tends to falter when he’s on holiday."