We, the Drowned(2006)

Carsten JensenCharlotte BarslundEmma Ryder

Hailed in Europe as an instant classic, We, the Drowned is the story of the port town of Marstal, whose inhabitants sailed the world’s oceans aboard freight ships for centuries. Spanning over a hundred years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War – 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 is a magnificent tale of love, war, and adventure, of the men who go to sea and the women they leave behind.

Ships are wrecked and blown up in wars, they are places of terror and violence, yet they continue to lure each generation of Marstallers. Among them are Laurids Madsen, who vanishes in the South Pacific; his son Albert, who searches the globe for his father; Knud Erik and his widowed mother, Klara, who takes on the town and the seas. 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 lived. We, the Drowned is a novel destined to take its place among the greatest seafaring literature.