On travelling with a child , she wrote : A child 's presence emphasises your trust in the community 's goodwill . And because children pay little attention to racial or cultural differences , junior companions rapidly demolish barriers of shyness or apprehension often raised when foreigners unexpectedly approach a remote village . In 1978 , Murphy wrote '' A Place Apart '' about her travels in Northern Ireland and encounters with members of the Protestant and Catholic religious communities . It won the 1979 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize . She credits her 1982 book '' Race to the Finish ? The Nuclear Stakes '' as a turning point that led her to write more about political issues . In 1985 she lived for several months in Bradford and Birmingham , talking to members of the Asian , Afro-Caribbean and White communities and witnessing first-hand one of the Handsworth riots ( described in '' Tales From Two Cities '' ) . In 1992 she cycled from Kenya to Zimbabwe , where she witnessed the impact of AIDS ; when describing this journey in '' The Ukimwi Road '' , she criticised the role of non-governmental organisations in sub-Saharan Africa . Her other writings include discussions about the aftermath of apartheid ( '' South from the Limpopo '' ) and the Rwandan genocide ( '' Visiting Rwanda '' ) , the displacement of tribal peoples ( '' One Foot in Laos '' ) , and post-war reconstruction of the Balkans ( '' Through the Embers of Chaos '' )
Rwandan genocide
Rwandan genocide
Dervla Murphy