There was nothing romantic about it.Īfter the book was published I was invited to have coffee with the Admiral of the Danish Navy, Niels Vang, who turned out to be a great fan of the book. Whether they decided to enlist on the Seagull or the Albatros, that was all the choice they had.
This was the only livelihood open to them. Q:What is it about sailing, the allure of the sea, that draws so many men, and you to write about it? What do you think is the modern equivalent of taking to the sea?Ī: A farmer in a traditional farming community is not drawn to the soil. You never know whether there is anyone out there until you have tried reaching them. The sailor is a universal figure.īut writing a novel is always taking a risk. But I had to admit it was a very local story, and maybe that was what interested me: the meeting between the local and the global, because that is what the sailor is: somebody who goes everywhere. I did everything I could to see the universal aspects of the history of a little seafaring town on a forgotten island in a remote corner of the Baltic. I could only say: I hope so, but there was no way I could know. Do you really think, she asked me, that this novel of yours is going to interest anyone outside of our little island? Are you surprised at the universal appeal of this story?Ī: I had already worked for a couple of years on We, the Drowned when my female cousin asked me a very unsettling question. Q: We, the Drowned has become an international sensation.
There are cannibals here, shrunken heads, prophetic dreams, forbidden passions, cowards, heroes, devastating tragedies, and miraculous survivals everything that a town like Marstal has actually experienced, and that makes We, the Drowned an unforgettable novel, destined to take its place among the greatest seafaring literature.
Strong, resilient, women raise families alone and sometimes take history into their own hands. Ships are wrecked at sea and blown up during wars, they are places of terror and violence, yet they continue to lure each generation of Marstal men fathers and sons away. Spanning over a hundred years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War, and 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 spins a magnificent tale of love, war, and adventure, a tale of the men who go to sea and the women they leave behind. Already hailed in Europe as an instant classic, We, the Drowned is the story of the port town of Marstal, whose inhabitants have sailed the world’s oceans aboard freight ships for centuries. Carsten Jensen’s debut novel has taken the world by storm.
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