This study was first published in 1983. It traces the social disintegration of Ballybran, a small village on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland, exploring the symptoms of the communities decline: from emigration to schizophrenia. This edition contains a new preface and epilogue.
When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside favela.