Black Woman Walking
by Maureen Stone
Category: Barbadians

Ask Maureen Stone when she started 'walking' and she will tell you with mild irritation, "Ever since I stopped crawling." But she is lying, she never crawled! She was a very sickly child who did not walk until she was almost three and then went on to walk the world. This is a book about travel that is not a travel book. It is a book about walking and hiking, but it is not about leisure. These activities provide the context within which the author examines and comments on issues in today's world. The approach is a provocative blend of the personal and the political, offering a different view of today's worldscape as seen through the eyes of a black woman sociologist, traveller and hiker. The result is a book which it will be difficult to put down. And which the reader will want to return to time and again. From Barbados to Bhutan, from Grenada to Guatemala, from Africa to Australia, China to Christchurch (Barbados and New Zealand) Maureen has been there, walking, observing, and listening. From the foothills of the Himalayas to the Old Man of Coniston she tells of encounters with men and women, and presents and discusses the issues and problems of today. In letters to her 'sisters around the world' and through conversations with her brothers, her travels and experiences are recounted. From the personal to the political she moves, sometimes with humour, always with painful honesty. She writes with a dash of Caribbean humour, a good helping of European sociology, and a flavouring of Eastern philosophy. This book is for Everywoman and Everyman who, if they look close enough, will find something of themselves within these pages. 'Black Woman Walking' travels a road worth following.