One Life

by Richard E. Leakey

Richard Leakey recounts his childhood, spent exploring the African wilds with his parents, his involvement in the study of human ancestry, and his struggle against a kidney disease which required a life-saving kidney transplant

Genres: Autobiography, Africa, Science, Nonfiction, Archaeology

212 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 1984

About the author

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey was a paleoanthropologist and conservationist. He was the second born of three sons of the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, and was the younger brother of Colin Leakey.

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Leakey family has long been an important part of Kenyan society. Richard is as stubborn and willful as the rest of his clan, which makes this memoir (not really complete enough to be an autobiography) of his young days and beginnings in politics a history of Kenya's often troubled and yet always entertaining past as well. Leakey is arrogant, pretentious, and undeniably intelligent and mainly forthright. His love for Kenya makes him bearable and the book is witty, full of Kenyan lore and name-dropping.