An Affair With Africa, Alzada Carlisle Kistner
An Affair With Africa, Alzada Carlisle Kistner
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An Affair With Africa

Author: Alzada Carlisle Kistner

Narrator: C. M. Hbert

Unabridged: 9 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/22/2005

Categories: Nonfiction, Travel


Synopsis

In June 1960, Alzada Kistner and her husband David, an entomologist, left their eighteenmonthold daughter in the care of relatives and began what was to be a fourmonth scientific expedition in the Belgian Congo. Three weeks after their arrival, the country was gripped by a violent revolution, trapping the Kistners in its midst. Despite having to face numerous lifethreatening situations, the Kistners were not to be dissuaded. An emergency airlift by the U.S. Air Force brought them to safety in Kenya, where they continued their field work. Thus began three decades of adventures in science. In An Affair with Africa, Alzada Kistner describes her familys African experience during the five expeditions they took, beginning with the trip to the Belgian Congo in 1960 and ending in 1973 with a ninemonth excursion across southern Africa. From hunching over columns of ants for hours on end while seven months pregnant to eating dinner next to Idi Amin, Kistner provides a lively and revealing account of the human side of scientific discovery.

About Alzada Carlisle Kistner

Alzada Carlisle Kistner is associate editor of the journal Sociobiology, published by California State University in Chico, California. David Kistner is the world’s leading authority on the rare beetles that live with ants and termites; he has described more than 500 new species and 150 new genera and written more than 200 scientific papers. An Affair with Africa is Alzada Carlisle Kistner’s first book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Laura on November 15, 2010

This is a book written by a woman whose husband is an entomologist and the adventures they have in Africa collecting specimens. I don't think this is such a great read by itself, but having just finished Poisonwood Bible, this book made a wonderful contrast read since they are both written during th......more

Goodreads review by Neil on February 26, 2017

A charming and generally well-written travel tale describing the adventures of a couple of entomologists traipsing across Africa between 1960 and 1973 hunting for myrmecophiles (also known as "ant guests," and termitophiles (termite guests.) These bugs live with and are fed by the ants and termites......more

Goodreads review by Renee on March 28, 2015

I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir/journal of the adventures of a family pursuing entomology in Africa over several trips and many years. I loved the blend of science and history, customs, culture, politics, and personal experience. Kistner shared elements that were funny and frightening, joyous and e......more

Goodreads review by Arie on January 23, 2017

I was not at all expecting to enjoy this book after realising much to do about collecting beetles. Turns out, it was amazing. This book had me sobbing with grief, filled my eyes with tears of joy, had me laughing like a hyena (yes, that's a joke about the book), tense from holding my breath from how......more

Goodreads review by Marcella on April 03, 2019

This book is everything I like in a travelogue; it gives a snapshot of different African countries at a time a change in the political culture.......more