About the Author

Rights: World
1-903582-58-X
€12.99

Postcards from Elsewhere
Travels in a Changing World
Barbara O'Shea

“Barbara O’Shea’s collection of stories is stark, searing and deeply moving. Perhaps it could make us just that bit more caring and compassionate and inspire us to want to do something to change the often awful circumstances she describes so well.”
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

“Postcards from Elsewhere is a powerful book, written with a rare combination of historical knowledge, political acumen and unsentimental compassion. Avoiding polemics and statistics, the author simply records what she herself has observed and describes several of the outstanding characters she has met. She reveals how life is lived by the majority of human beings – and why it must be so lived. Using extraordinary skill, Barbara O’Shea sketches in the historical background to her travels – briefly, yet without oversimplification. In Iaconic, memorable phrases, she captures the cultural and social significance of tiny details and provides striking vignettes of landscapes and cityscapes. Now, when the controllers of the global economy are working hard to conceal many of the sources of our Rich World’s affluence, Postcards from Elsewhere is an urgently needed book.”
- Dervla Murphy

A wonderfully descriptive book that is difficult to put down once started…provides an incisive insight into the lives of peoples in faraway lands that often remain hidden from view. It is a testimony to the courage and tenacity of the human spirit in a vastly changing world…It is a must both for the armchair and physical traveller.”
- Tom Hyland, East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign

From the evocative scents of nutmeg and cloves in Indonesia to meeting a coca ‘cocaine’ producer in the tropical heat of Columbia; From singing with the lost children of Rwanda to eating watermelon with a Buddhist monk in Cambodia; From drinking tea with Marta in East Timor to talking to Prudence in Zambia; Barbara O’Shea travels the Southern Hemisphere, across Africa, Asia and South America, meeting the people who live in a complex world of poverty and courage, conflict and dignity.

Unforgettable human stories, including the charcoal workers of Brazil, the transvestites of Bangladesh and the writer with the ‘tongue of fire’ in Zimbabwe, will draw you into a colourful and fascinating place.

In Postcards from Elsewhere enter another world and discover the distinctive voices of the people who live there.