Book launch: Womadic Wanders

Sydney-based Irish author Gerdette Rooney recently published her first book, Womadic Wanders: Stories of a compulsive traveller. It’s a collection of travel stories from “fifty years travelling and diary-keeping penned in many hostels, doss houses and hammocks”:

This book contains the stories of a self-coined ‘woman nomad’ who has always felt an affinity with the nomadic and the unsettled. Irishwoman Gerdette Rooney has travelled the world solo with her rucksack, camera and hiking boots. With a natural curiosity for other cultures, peoples and ancient rock art, she likes nothing better than to mingle with the locals.

She has had many adventures – and mishaps – over the years, normally trying to avoid the more commonplace destinations in search of the ever-elusive tranquillity of mountains and Nature’s pristine regions. However, she has sometimes stumbled on troubled places that proved challenging but interesting.

Her profession as a radiographer took her to Soweto in South Africa, where she witnessed the injustices of apartheid and she also worked in Iraq during the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Womadic Wanders is currently available at Glee Books, Glebe Point Rd – get it in time for Christmas, and enjoy some vicarious travel while we wait for international borders to reopen! You can also contact Gerdette directly to buy a copy, her email is [email protected] 

You can see a video with Gerdette reading excerpts of her book at Glee Books here: