The Colony of Good Hope

Kim Leine, Martin Aitken

$32.99

Paperback

In stock
Ready to ship

QTY:

English

Picador
29 March 2022

Fiction & Literature; Historical fiction; Fiction in translation

An immensely powerful epic of colonialism, set

in 18th-century Greenland, about the great forces of nature, the meeting of cultures and fathers and sons.

1728: The doomed Danish King Fredrik IV sends a governor to Greenland to establish a colony, in the hopes of exploiting the country's allegedly vast natural resources. A few merchants, a barber-surgeon, two trainee priests, a blacksmith, some carpenters and soldiers and a dozen hastily married couples go with him.

The missionary priest Hans Egede has already been in Greenland for several years when the new colonists arrive. He has established a mission there, but the converts are few. Among those most hostile Egede is the shaman Aappaluttoq, whose own son was taken by the priest and raised in the Christian faith as his own. Thus the great rift between two men, and two ways of life, is born.

The newly arrived couples - composed of men and women plucked from prison - quickly sink into a life of almost complete dissolution, and soon unsanitary conditions, illness and death bring the colony to its knees. Through the starvation and the epidemics that beset the colony, Egede remains steadfast in his determination - willing to sacrifice even those he loves for the sake of his mission.

In The Colony of Good Hope, Kim Leine explores what happens when two cultures confront one another. In a distant colony, under the harshest conditions, the overwhelming forces of nature meet the vices of man.

By: Kim Leine
Translated by: Martin Aitken
Imprint: Picador
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 41mm
Weight: 717g
ISBN: 9781529014341
ISBN 10: 1529014344
Pages: 576
Publication Date: 29 March 2022
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Kim Leine is a Danish-Norwegian novelist. He received the Golden Laurel award and the Nordic Council's Literature Prize for his fourth novel, The Prophets of Eternal Fjord.

Reviews for The Colony of Good Hope

Praise for The Prophets of Eternal Fjord: 'From the outset of his career, Kim Leine established himself as a Scandinavian literary figure without precedent.' * Guardian * A superb novel . . . A raw, hugely powerful chronicle of lives lived on the edge . . . Has a grandeur and a compass that few novels this year will match. * Sunday Times *