Through the Embers of Chaos: Balkan Journeys

by Dervla Murphy

Overview

As Dervla Murphy crisscrossed the Balkans in a series of bicycle journeys towards the beginning and end of the 1990s, she recorded the griefs and confusions of the ordinary people, many of whom had showed extraordinary courage and resilience during that terrible 'decade of decay' and whose voices were so little heard during the conflict. Despite their suffering, she found plenty of traditional Balkan hospitality and was passed between friends from city to city and town to town. Through the Embers of Chaos describes journeys – through Croatia, Servia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania – that demanded the greatest emotional and physical stamina, while also elucidating the complex history of the both the region and the conflict itself. It's an extraordinary achievement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780601168
Publisher:	Eland Publishing
Publication date:	10/30/2016
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Dervla Murphy was born (and still lives) in Lismore, County Waterford in 1931. Full Tilt, her first book, published in 1965, describes her exuberant bicycle ride from Lismore to India. Since then she has travelled in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, publishing over twenty other titles, including a highly acclaimed autobiography, Wheels Within Wheels. Dervla has won worldwide praise for her writing. Now in her eighties and with a brand new hip, she continues to travel around the world, happily setting off to trek in remote mountains or to live in refugee camps. She remains passionate about politics, conservation and beer.

Editorial Reviews

Murphy, Irish nurse and adventure traveler extraordinaire (she has traveled alone to and written about such dangerous places as Afghanistan and Pakistan), has compiled a fascinating and in-depth look at a region with a long and terrible history. The work is based on her three trips to the Balkans: the first to Zagreb, Croatia, in 1991, soon after Slovenia's and Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia and three months before the Bosnian conflict began; the second, a five-week trip to Serbia in 1999, four months after the end of NATO's air war; and the third, a three-month bicycle tour (at age 69) of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, and Kosovo in 2000. Murphy finely lays out the history of the region and introduces us to its people at the beginning of the "decade of decay," but her second and third trips are the most compelling. Here, she returns to meet the survivors of that chaotic, murderous time in history, who endured widespread executions, pillage, torture, rape, and uprooting as religions, ethnic groups, and national identities clashed. Murphy's style ranges from topnotch reporting to personal and anecdotal storytelling, and her book is a powerful look at a diverse group of people who are both courageous and resilient. With a helpful chronology, plus a map, three appendixes, an extensive bibliography, a much-needed list of acronyms, and an index, this work from a writer of 18 previous adventure travel tomes is both highly educational and deeply inspiring.-Melinda Stivers Leach, Precision Editorial Svcs., Wondervu, CO Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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