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When I picture the late Hunter S. Thompson, it is not a photograph I see, but a caricature of him in a floppy hat and aviator sunglasses, carrying an elegant cigarette holder. Images like this one have been produced for almost four decades by Thompson’s longtime friend and travel companion Ralph Steadman. A flamboyant artist, Steadman illustrated many of Thompson’s best-known articles and books, including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Now the artist turns author in his new book, The Joke’s Over, a memoir of his escapades with Thompson.

The pair first met in 1970, when Steadman traveled from his native Britain to illustrate a magazine article Thompson was writing on the Kentucky Derby. They spent most of the trip drinking and taking drugs, and it culminated with Thompson spraying Steadman in the face with Mace. But it also resulted in some wild, cutting-edge writing and illustrations, and gave birth to Gonzo journalism. Their subsequent assignments had them covering The America’s Cup yacht race, the 1972 presidential campaign, the Watergate hearings and the infamous road trip to Las Vegas in search of the American Dream.

Steadman’s memoir is bittersweet. At times he writes of Thompson in affectionate terms, at others he accuses him of being a cold-hearted acquaintance who cheated the illustrator out of royalties on their books. Yet their sometimes chilly 35-year relationship warmed in the latter years, and Steadman was among the 300 mourners at Thompson’s 2005 funeral, when his ashes were fired from a cannon atop a 153-foot-tall tower. Steadman was there from beginning to end, and thus has license to write a credible tale about life with Thompson. Hunter was a different animal, Steadman observes. He learned the balance between living out on the edge of lunacy and apparently normal discourse with everyday events. The Joke’s Over is a must read for both longtime fans of Thompson, and the curious who want to learn about a risk-taking writer who left his indelible mark on American journalism. John T. Slania is a journalism professor at Loyola University in Chicago.

<b>Kenya’s green warrior</b> In many African nations, being a voice of dissent is tricky business in the post- colonial era. With the damage done by former European rulers still evident, power-hungry figures routinely dismiss concepts like press freedom and open elections as misguided attempts to reinstate Western domination over sovereign states. But 2004 Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai (The Green Belt Movement) never relented in her attacks on what she deemed oppressive measures and actions by the Kenyan government of Daniel Arap Moi. She also didn’t let entrenched traditions limit or restrict her opportunities for education and advancement, nor silence her advocacy on behalf of Kenyan women. Maathai emerged as an inspirational figure not only in her native Kenya, but around the world. Her memoir, Unbowed, recounts her amazing story and details her long fight against corruption, greed and outdated social conventions.

During her youth, Maathai ignored those in her village, including her parents, who loudly proclaimed that girls neither needed nor should want education. After studying with Catholic missionaries, she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biological science in the United States, and eventually became East and Central Africa’s first female doctorate holder and the first to head a university department (veterinary anatomy). Soon, she extended her efforts into the fields of environmentalism and politics. Despite constantly being vilified and attacked by the Moi government, Maathai encouraged and recruited others to join her campaigns. She helped create the Green Belt movement, an initiative that restores indigenous forests while also putting much needed funds in the hands of rural women.

Maathai spearheaded a drive for widespread governmental change that transformed a dictatorship into a constitutional democracy. Finally, after various conflicts that simmered and recurred throughout the late 20th century, a new day began in Kenya. Maathai not only won a Nobel Peace Prize, but also a seat in Kenya’s Parliament and a post as deputy minister for the environment and natural resources. Her story as told in Unbowed reaffirms the notion that one person truly can make a difference, no matter how vast the odds or how difficult the quest. <i>Ron Wynn writes for the</i> Nashville City Paper <i>and other publications.</i>

Malika Oufkir’s first book, Stolen Lives, told the horrific story of her 20-year imprisonment in Morocco. The eldest of six children of the closest aide and friend of King Hassan II, Oufkir spent most of her childhood and adolescence in the seclusion of the court harem, surrounded by luxury. In 1972, when she was 18, her father was executed after a failed assassination attempt. Oufkir, her five younger siblings and her mother were imprisoned in a desert penal colony for 15 years, the last 10 in solitary cells. Recaptured five days after an audacious escape, Oufkir and the others were officially free, but unable to leave their home, carry on friendships or lead ordinary lives. In 1996, the family finally fled Morocco to begin anew.

Freedom: The Story of My Second Life, Oufkir’s follow-up memoir, details her struggle to create a normal life outside her homeland. First in France, then the United States, Oufkir confronts the abundance of food available in supermarkets, shocking after all those years of prison deprivation and hoarding even the smallest crumb. Equally frightening to her is how technology makes the world a small place; Oufkir learns how to live in a world where her appearance on Oprah makes her an international celebrity.

Oufkir’s story is filled with hope. Living for the first time as an adult, she grabs our attention with her observations and humor, reminding us of the basic freedoms we take for granted: friendship, love and the ability to build the lives we dream about. Her most poignant passages detail her quest to find love, and eventually, a child. My first man, the one who was to make a real’ woman out of me, came into my life shortly after I was freed from prison. I was a 43-year-old virgin, she writes. I have to relearn everything about being a woman, from the beginning. . . . I want to be a woman, at long last. Kelly Koepke is a freelance writer in Albuquerque, New Mexico.