South from the Limpopo: Travels Through South Africa - Couverture souple

Dervla Murphy's journal of her cycle tours of South Africa, before, during, and after the transfer of power in 1994, gives a day-by-day view of that momentous period. When she first pedalled across the Limpopo she fancied that she understood South Africa's problems because for more than 40 years she had - from a distance - taken a particular intrest in them. Within 12 hours of her journey that illusion was shattered. This journal refelcts her moods of confusion and eleation, hope and disappointment as she tries to come to terms with a country even more complex and shattered - but also more flexible - than she had expected. As she records her quite often contradictory reactions to the new South Africa, Dervla Murphy's journal records how she came to love the new South Africa.

Dervla Murphy is one of the very best loved of travel writers. She was born in County Waterford and since 1964 has been regularly publishing accounts of her journeys - by bicycle and on foot - in the remoter areas of four continents. She has also written about the problems of Northern Ireland, the hazards of nuclear power and race relations in Britain. The Times Literary Supplement called her `an admirable woman - she has a romantic soul and a keen eye`.