Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month for July 2018
Chosen for the Zoe Ball Book Club
'Icelandic history has been brought to extraordinary life. I was swept up in the story and the vivid plight of people taken away from everything they knew and understood. An accomplished and intelligent novel.'- Yrsa Sigurdardottir
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.
The 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.
Publisher: John Murray PressISBN: 9781473638983Number of pages: 384Weight: 270 gDimensions: 126 x 194 x 30 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Writes compellingly of the psychological and physical shocks of being uprooted. Impeccably researched,this is a poetic retelling of Icelandic history.'- The Daily Mail
'From the first,it leaps from the page... I enjoyed and admired it in equal measure'- Sarah Perry,author of The Essex Serpent
'Icelandic history has been brought to extraordinary life. I was swept up in the story and the vivid plight of people taken away from everything they knew and understood. An accomplished and intelligent novel.'- Yrsa Sigurdardottir
'Remarkably accomplished...The true story behind the novel is almost preposterously epic,yet she brings it to life by inhabiting the minds of her characters'- The Scotsman
'A compelling read...While a historical novel,it also contains contemporary resonances,particularly in the way it examines how different people integrate into a society that is completely foreign to them'- The Bookseller
'A lyrical tale full of the Icelandic stories that Asta tells her children and her kidnappers.'- Stylist
'Compelling stuff'- Good Housekeeping
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