In Full Flight: A Story of Africa and Atonement

Written by John Heminway

Narrated by John Heminway

As a member of the renowned Flying Doctors Service, Dr. Anne Spoerry treated hundreds of thousands of people across rural Kenya over the span of fifty years, earning herself the cherished nickname “Mama Daktari”—“Mother Doctor.” Yet few knew that what drove her from post-World War II Europe to Africa was a past marked by rebellion, submission, and personal decisions that earned her another nickname—this one sinister—while working as a “doctor” in a Nazi concentration camp.

In Full Flight explores the question of whether it is possible to rewrite one’s past by doing good in the present, and takes readers on an extraordinary journey into a dramatic life punctuated by both courage and weakness and driven by a powerful need to atone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9780525588825

Reviews for In Full Flight

[akblanchard_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Throughout her long life, physician Anne Spoerry was mostly silent about the time she spent at the notorious Ravensbruck concentration camp for women. "It was inconsequential. I did not suffer," she claimed in one of the rare moments she was willing to speak about the camp at all (p. 131). But Spoerry harbored a dark secret; as a young concentration camp "doctor" under the spell of a seductive older woman, she allegedly tortured her fellow prisoners and even selected some for death.

Fleeing justice after the war, Spoerry moved to Africa and devoted herself to providing medical service to impoverished native Kenyans. In this role she introduced many public health measures and saved many lives. So respected and well-known was she, she acquired the honorific title of "Mama Daktari"-- "Mother Doctor". But did the good works of her later life atone for the crimes of her past? John Hemingway examines this question in his biography of Spoerry, In Full Flight. I wasn't convinced that Spoerry's dedication was necessarily the result of guilt--it sounded to me like she enjoyed the attention and fame associated with being "Mama Daktari", and took pride in having the most grueling schedule of anyone. Still, this is an interesting biography of a complex woman. Recommended.