Amazon.com Review
Dervla Murphy is a fine and accomplished Irish writer who has penned 16 books, and has both a detail-catching eye and great personal ambition. Between 1993 and 1995, when she was in her early 60s, she rode her bike 6,000 miles across South Africa--alone--when the Republic was engulfed by racial strife. The question is, Why? As Murphy herself admits, it wasn't for pleasure. Was it then to personally document a country that she herself likens to a mental asylum, where disease and danger followed her like a stalker? Was it to show that she cared or illustrate that she could make such a trek despite her age and the tumultuous social environment? Whatever her motivation, there are numerous problems to conquer: She gets tick fever, her bike is stolen, she is continually warned that her path is not safe--yet on she bikes through gales and parched desert, into impoverished villages and the occasional wealthy town. Struggles abound, and Murphy documents them all, like a martyrish "Little Caboose," with nearly every page darkened by some hardship or sketch of sadness. She uncovers some of the complexity of post-apartheid society--where fears rage like an airborne epidemic--and she skillfully records scenery. But this dense and detailed book is like the subject of apartheid, ultimately depressing. When Murphy confesses that she has "come to love the place," it's hard to believe her, or to understand why.
--Melissa Rossi
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
In her latest travelogue, Murphy (Muddling Through in Madagascar) documents her 6000-mile trek through South Africa's nine provinces between 1993 and 1995. The post-apartheid South Africa she sees is characterized by violence, racial tension and economic uncertaintyAcircumstances, indicates Murphy, not unlike those occurring in her own Northern Ireland. Forsaking such comforts as automobiles and hotels, the 60-something Murphy opts instead to travel by bicycle, stopping off at municipal watering holes, campgrounds and, when the invitations arise, private homes. Such intrepid wanderlust gives her the opportunity to speak with a cross-section of South Africans, from unemployed black miners to wealthy white Afrikaners. However, Murphy speaks only English among South Africa's 11 official languages. This fact obviously limits whom she speaks to and, similarly, what people are able to communicate to her. She makes up for this shortcoming by listening closely to what she can understand and by making the most of her visual observations. Early in the book, she shows self-awareness by acknowledging the wisdom of a black man who tells her, "...you should know as a white you're intruding here.... It's not a zoo for tourists to see how 'natives' live." Fortunately, Murphy's curiosity allows her to insightfully, if occasionally intemperately, relate her many experiences, from witnessing the frenzied crowds celebrating Nelson Mandela's 1994 presidential inauguration to observing a summer's day mob attack on a young girl to eating Christmas Day dinner at a prison. Rights: John Murray Publishers. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
