We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen. Boston/New York. 2010. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 9780151013777. Translated from the Danish by Charlotte Barslund with Emma Ryder. 678 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Joe McLaren. Jacket design by Suzanne Dean.
DESCRIPTION - An epic drama of adventure, courage, ruthlessness and passion by one of Scandinavia's most acclaimed storytellers. In 1848 a motley crew of Danish sailors sets sail from the small island town of Marstal to fight the Germans. Not all of them return - and those who do will never be the same. Among them is the daredevil Laurids Madsen, who promptly escapes again into the anonymity of the high seas. As soon as he is old enough, his son Albert sets off in search of his missing father on a voyage that will take him to the furthest reaches of the globe and into the clutches of the most nefarious company. Bearing a mysterious shrunken head, and plagued by premonitions of bloodshed, he returns to a town increasingly run by women - among them a widow intent on liberating all men from the tyranny of the sea. From the barren rocks of Newfoundland to the lush plantations of Samoa, from the roughest bars in Tasmania, to the frozen coasts of northern Russia, WE, THE DROWNED spans four generations, two world wars and a hundred years. Carsten Jensen conjures a wise, humorous, thrilling story of fathers and sons, of the women they love and leave behind, and of the sea's murderous promise. This is a novel destined to take its place among the greatest seafaring literature.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - As a boy in Marstal, Denmark, CARSTEN JENSEN (born 24 July 1952, Marstal, Denmark) sailed on his father's boat, a 220-ton freighter named the Abelone. In 2000, he returned to Marstal to write WE, THE DROWNED. He has also worked as a literary critic and a journalist, reporting from China, Cambodia, Latin America, the Pacific Islands, and Afghanistan. WE, THE DROWNED won Denmark's most important literary prize, while also being selected by readers of a major daily newspaper as the best Danish novel of the last twenty-five years. It was a bestseller throughout Scandinavia and in Germany, and has also been published in the United Kingdom, Spain, and France.
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