I Will Try
Legson Kayira1965

“I learned I was not, as most Africans believed, the victim of my circumstances but the master of them.”

Legson Kayira was just 16-years old when he set out on his epic journey from a small rural Malawian village to the United States of America in his quest to realise his seemingly impossible dream.
Walking barefoot, and carrying food for five days, an axe and two books, he travelled more than 2,500 miles through the African bush. Most people would have given up, but not Legson.
Inspired by the life of Abraham Lincoln and the motto of his secondary school, he walked across four African countries before reaching Khartoum in the Sudan, where American consular officials helped him to travel to the United States to take up a scholarship at Skagit Valley College in Washington State.
I Will Try records his early life and the details of this epic journey. Originally published in 1965, while Legson was studying at the University of Washington, it became a best-seller in the United States (16 weeks on the New York best-seller list), and was translated into numerous other languages.
Legson later went on to study history at Cambridge University in England and wrote four novels.
This volume contains the original text as well as a memoir by Legson’s widow, Julie Kayira, written after his sudden death in England in October 2012. The foreword is written by South African media expert Phil Molefe.
As vivid as the day it was first published, I Will Try continues to inspire people the world over and give hope to many that they too can achieve the impossible.