The Austrian naturalist Joy - Friederike Victoria Gessner or better known as Joy Adamson,

was born on January 20, 1910 in Troppau, Silesia, Austria and died on January 3, 1980. Her
Austrian family had a lot of money, her parents, Victor and Gessner Traute, divorced when
Joy was ten years old. Her father worked as an architect and urban planner. She is best
known for her book Born Free, published in 1960, in which she recounts the experiences
she lived to save a lioness named Elsa, Joy Adamson also was a naturalist, artist, and
author. She was educated in Austria, she earing a music degree before studying sculpting
and medicine, she married three times in the span of ten years, her second husband gave her
the name of "joy" and encouraged her to continue sketching and painting and the last
husband George Adamson, make his life with her in Kenya.

In February 1956 George was forced to kill a lioness who attacked him for protecting his
three cubs. George decides not to leave them alone, he took them to his camp with his wife,
where they decided to raise them. Two of the cubs, "Lastika" and "Grandota" were sent to a
zoo but Elsa stayed with the couple, after a time together with Elsa the couple decided to
set Elsa free rather than take her to a zoo. They spend time teaching Elsa how to survive on
her own and they were right because Elsa became the first lioness successfully released
back into the wild, in January 1961 Elsa died by a tick bite that gave her babesiosis. At age
5, Elsa became seriously ill, when Joy was in London. George cared for her in the hope that
she would get better. Elsa's death is believed to have been from a tick disease. After Elsa's
death and the release of her three cubs, Joy Adamson adopted a young cheetah, named
Pippa, who had been the pet of a British Army officer. For several years, Pippa was also
trained to survive in the wild. Her story is told in the book "The Spotted Sphinx".

"Born Free" tells the story of Elsa. It was Joy's most successful book, being a global best
seller. He was brought to the screen with a movie of the same name, in 1966. On January 3,
1980, Joy Adamson had been killed in the Shaba reserve in northern Kenya, where she was
observing the behavior of leopards. Joy Adamson's body was discovered by her assistant,
Pieter Mawson. They first thought he had been a lion but later they convicted Paul Nakware
Ekai, a fired worker previously employed by Adamson, was found guilty of murder and
sentenced to indefinite prison.

Bibliography:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Adamson

https://capitanswing.com/autores/adamson-joy/

Carol Mariana Isaza

Sara Florez