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The Sealwoman's Gift

The Sealwoman’s Gift

£8.99

he Sealwoman’s Gift is about the eternal power of storytelling to help us survive. The novel is full of stories – Icelandic ones told to fend off a slave-owner’s advances, Arabian ones to help an old man die. And there are others, too: the stories we tell ourselves to protect our minds from what cannot otherwise be borne, the stories we need to make us happy.

Only 1 left in stock

Categories: Book Shop, Fiction Books, Islay Book Festival 2020 Tags: Fiction Books, Folk Tales, Islay Book Festival 2020, Scottish Author
  • Description
  • Additional information

Description

In 1627 Barbary pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted some 400 of its people, including 250 from a tiny island off the mainland. Among the captives sold into slavery in Algiers were the island pastor, his wife and their three children. Although the raid itself is well documented, little is known about what happened to the women and children afterwards. It was a time when women everywhere were largely silent.

In this brilliant reimagining, Sally Magnusson gives a voice to Asta, the pastor’s wife. Enslaved in an alien Arab culture Asta meets the loss of both her freedom and her children with the one thing she has brought from home: the stories in her head.

Steeped in the sagas and folk tales of her northern homeland, she finds herself experiencing not just the separations and agonies of captivity, but the reassessments that come in any age when intelligent eyes are opened to other lives, other cultures and other kinds of loving.

Additional information

Weight0.350 kg
Dimensions19.8 × 16.1 × 2.4 cm
Author

Sally Magnusson

ISBN

9781473638983

Language

English

Paperback

384 p.

Publisher

John Murray Press

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