The Ukimwi Road by Murphy, Dervla - 1993

John Murray, 1993. Hardcover. Good. A brave and thoughtful Irishwoman, 60-ish Murphy (Transylvania and Beyond) specializes in treks through remote regions. Here she recounts a 3000-mile, four-month bicycle ride through southern Africa, at first seeking a ``carefree ramble'' but soon learning that most of her planned route included the region's ukimwi (AIDS) belt. Thus, Murphy's travelogue, which mixes her reflections on colonial legacies with well-etched encounters with border bureaucrats and generous locals, is shadowed by the specter of loss: a young prostitute, her siblings' sole support after their parents died of AIDS, struggles to make her clients use condoms; an expat doctor agonizes over the dilemmas of notifying the HIV-positive. Given her encounters with troubled Africans as well as her views of ineffective Western aid workers, Murphy concludes a bit simplistically that it's time for the West to withdraw, to leave Africans ``to sort out their own future.'' Despite that, this book-first published in the U.K. in 1993 remains resonant. 0-7195-5250-8. Paperback - 1993 - fair condition, slight spine lean corner crease - - used books, secondhand books, out of print books, hard to find books, for sale, second-hand books, college books, student books, nonfiction, first edition, exlibrary books sold, , non-fiction books delivered world wide. Isbn 0719552508.