The Scent of Eucalyptus

The Scent of Eucalyptusis a coming of age novel set in Ethiopia in the early 1960s. Luke La Touche freshly graduated from Oxford resists settling down immediately into a career and heads instead for Africa to seek new experiences and a reprieve from the anxieties of Cold War Britain. Taking a teaching position in Addis Ababa where his influential cousin James provides all the right introductions he finds experiences a plenty. He is embraced by an expat community in the last throes of the colonial tradition. He is smitten with Caroline a fiercely independent British woman and befriends the rambunctious Simon. Everything changes however as he is drawn into the world of Yohannis a young aristocrat who is part of an emerging generation seeking to transform Africa forever.