Beryl Markham, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west, describes her childhood on a farm in Kenya, her apprenticeship as a horse trainer, and her later career as a pioneer aviator who piloted passengers and supplies in a small plane to remote corners of Africa.

Of her memoir Ernest Hemingway said, "She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer....[She] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers."