Dervla Murphy is an Irish touring cyclist and author of adventure travel books for over 40 years. Murphy is best known for her 1965 book Full Tilt: Ireland to India With a Bicycle, about an overland cycling trip through Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Murphy has normally travelled alone without luxuries and depending on the hospitality of local people. She has been in dangerous situations; for example, she was attacked by wolves in the former Yugoslavia, threatened by soldiers in Ethiopia, and robbed in Siberia. However, she described her worst incident as tripping over cats at home and shattering her left arm.
In 1966 Murphy made her first trip to Africa. She travelled to Ethiopia and walked with a pack mule from Asmara to Addis Ababa, confronted by Kalashnikov-carrying soldiers on the way. This journey was described in her fourth book, In Ethiopia with a Mule.
In 2009 Murphy appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Great Lives, nominating Freya Stark as a Great Life, supported by expert John Murray VII of the publishing family.
Publications:
1965: Full Tilt: Ireland to India With a Bicycle
1966: Tibetan Foothold
1967: The Waiting Land: a Spell in Nepal
1968: In Ethiopia with a Mule
1976: On a Shoestring to Coorg: an Experience of South India
1977: Where the Indus is Young: a Winter in Baltistan
1978: A Place Apart
1979: Wheels Within Wheels (autobiography)
1982: Race to the Finish? the Nuclear Stakes
1983: Eight Feet in the Andes: Travels with a Mule in Unknown Peru
1985: Muddling through in Madagascar
1985: Changing the Problem: Post-forum Reflections
1985: Ireland, Orbis
1987: Tales From Two Cities: Travels of Another Sort
1990: Cameroon with Egbert
1993: Transylvania and Beyond
1995: The Ukimwi Road: from Kenya to Zimbabwe
1998: Visiting Rwanda
1999: South from the Limpopo: Travels through South Africa
2001: One Foot in Laos
2003: Through the Embers of Chaos: Balkan Journeys
2005: Through Siberia by Accident
2006: Silverland: a Winter Journey beyond the Urals
2008: The Island that Dared (travels in Cuba)
2013: A Month by the Sea: Encounters in Gaza
2015: Between River and Sea: Encounters in Israel and Palestine
