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In The Waiting Land seasoned travel writer Dervla Murphy affectionately portrays the people of Nepal’s different tribes, the customs of an ancient, complex civilization and the country’s natural grandeur and beauty. With her special brand of Irish understatement, she delights in the unpredictability of her journey and in the surprises which make her travels in that unique country such a stirring experience. Having settled in a village in the Pokhara Valley to work at a Tibetan refugee camp, she makes her home in a tiny, vermin-infested room over a stall in the bazaar. In diary form, she describes her various journeys by air, by bicycle and on foot into the remote and mountainous Lantang region on the border of Tibet. Murphy’s charm and sensitivity as a writer and traveller reveal not only the vitality of an age-old civilization facing the challenge of Westernisation, but the wonder and excitement of her own remarkable adventures.
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Dervla Murphy was born in Co. Waterford, Ireland, of Dublin parents and still lives there. Since 1964 she has been regularly publishing descriptions of her journeys – by bicycle or on foot – in the remoter areas of four continents. She has also written about the problems of Northern Ireland, the hazards of the nuclear power industry and race relations in Britain. The Times Literary Supplement called her 'an admirable woman - she has a romantic soul and a keen eye'.
Her published works include:
Full Tilt. Ireland to India with a Bicycle (John Murray 1965);
Tibetan Foothold (John Murray, 1966);
The Waiting Land: A Spell in Nepal (London, John Murray/New York, Trans Atlantic Arts, 1967);
In Ethiopia with a Mule (John Murray, 1968);
On a Shoestring to Coorg: an experience of Southern India (John Murray; 1976);
Where the Indus Is Young: A Winter in Baltistan (London, John Murray, 1977);
A Place Apart (John Murray, 1978);
Wheels Within Wheels (Autobiography, John Murray, 1979/Wheels Within Wheels:
Unraveling an Irish Past, New Haven, Ticknor & Fields, 1980);
Eight Feet in the Andes (John Murray, 1983);
Changing the Problem: Post-Forum Reflections (pamphlet, Dublin, The Lilliput Press, 1984); Muddling Through in Madagascar (John Murray, 1985);
Cameroon with Egbert (John Murray, 1989);
Transylvania and Beyond (John Murray/Woodstock, New York, Overlook Press, 1992);
The Ukimwi Road. From Kenya to Zimbabwe (John Murray, 1993);
South from the Limpopo: Travels Through South Africa (John Murray, 1997);
Visiting Rwanda (Dublin, The Lilliput Press, 1998); One Foot in Laos (John Murray, 1999);
Through the Embers of Chaos: Balkan Journeys (John Murray, 2003). When she isn't travelling, she lives in Lismore.
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