Island that Dared (The)

Author Dervla Murphy
This is no ordinary travel book, Journeys in Cuba captures the everyday lives of Cubans and the society created by the revolution. Through her own research, documented in her bibliography, and through conversations with Cubans of all political viewpoints, she builds a complex picture of a people struggling to retain their identity in the face of continuous US hostility.

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“Humour and sturdiness is only the half of it: Dervla Murphy is one of those rare travellers who can make the world seem both wider and more intimate” The Observer

This is no ordinary travel book, Dervla Murphy’s Journeys in Cuba captures the everyday lives of Cubans while she delves far deeper than the average travel writer pursuing her quest to understand the society created by the revolution.

The Island that dared begins with a holiday in Cuba for Dervla accompanied by her daughter and three young granddaughters in 2005, she then returns alone in January 2006 and again in Autumn 2007. Through her own research, documented in her bibliography, and through conversations with Cubans of all political viewpoints she meets along the way, she builds a complex picture of a people struggling to retain their identity in the face of continuous US hostility.

Cuba Solidarity is name checked and she follows the work of the Campaign via the national media in the last few years. The minute detail of her and her family’s day by day experience and their needs can at times seem superfluous as you wait to listen to her exchanges with Cubans but these help to create a natural context for her informed and open minded reflections on aspects of Cuba’s past and present.

Dervla is a very experienced traveller, her first book related her cycling from Ireland to India in the early 60s, and she mentions many other intrepid trips all over the world. Now in her late 70s she is still travelling, having got around Cuba by bus and on foot, and maintains a persistent passion for politics.

Throughout the book she asks frank questions that dig at the difficult issues and contradictions that Cuba accommodates, the execution of hijackers in 2003 to humanitarian internationalism, from ‘independent’ journalists and prostitution to Che and Chavez; while giving a voice to ordinary Cubans with diverse views in an attempt to understand. Her journey in the pursuit of answers is a compelling read.

Trish Meehan