We, the Drowned

Carsten Jensen

Jan 2016 · Blackstone Audio Inc. · Narrated by Simon Vance

About this audiobook

In 1848, a motley crew of Danish sailors sets sail from the small island town of Marstal to fight the Germans. Not all of them return-and those who do will never be the same. Among them is the daredevil Laurids Madsen, who promptly escapes again into the anonymity of the high seas.This is also the story of the port town of Marstal, Denmark, whose inhabitants sailed the world from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War and about the women and children they left behind. The novel tells of ships wrecked and blown up in wars, of places of terror and violence that continue to lure each generation with their cannibals, shrunken heads, prophetic dreams, forbidden passions, cowards, heroes, tragedies, and miraculous survivals.The result is a brilliant seafaring novel, a gripping saga encompassing industrial growth, the years of expansion and exploration, the crucible of the first half of the twentieth century, and most of all, the sea.Hailed in Europe as an instant classic, We, the Drowned, spanning four generations, two world wars, and a hundred years, is an epic tale of adventure, ruthlessness, and passion destined to take its place among the greatest seafaring literature.

About the author

Carsten Jensen sailed on his father's boat, a 220-ton freighter named the Abelone, as a boy in Marstal, Denmark. In 2000, he returned to Marstal to write We, the Drowned. He has worked as a literary critic and a journalist, reporting from China, Cambodia, Latin America, the Pacific Islands, and Afghanistan.

Simon Vance is an award-winning actor and an AudioFile Golden Voice with over forty Earphones Awards. He has won thirteen prestigious Audie Awards and was Booklist's very first Voice of Choice in 2008. He has narrated more than eight hundred audiobooks over almost thirty years, beginning when he was a radio newsreader for the BBC in London.