{"id":7242,"date":"2020-02-29T15:42:48","date_gmt":"2020-02-29T14:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=7242"},"modified":"2020-02-29T15:42:59","modified_gmt":"2020-02-29T14:42:59","slug":"the-sealwomans-gift-by-sally-magnusson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=7242","title":{"rendered":"The Sealwomans Gift by Sally Magnusson"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sealwomans Gift by Sally Magnusson<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

These are some of our comments about this book, the debut novel for Sally Magnusson.<\/p>\n

Beautifully written, loved this book, rich in wording, descriptions superb, incredible quality of writing, lots of humour even in dire circumstances, superb language, clear storylines, based on a historical event which makes it particularly interesting, no unrealistic ending.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s it all about:- In 1627 Barbary pirates rounded the coast of Iceland and abducted 400 of its people, including 250 from a tiny island off the mainland.<\/p>\n

Among the captives sold into slavery were the island pastor, his wife and their 3 children.<\/p>\n

In this re-imagining Sally Magnusson gives a voice to Asta the pastors wife. Enslaved in an alien Arab culture Asta meets the loss of 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 longing.<\/p>\n

This book is about the eternal power of storytelling to help us survive. The novel is full of stories, Icelandic ones to fend off a slave owner\u2019s advances, Arabian ones to help an old man die.<\/p>\n

The Sealwoman was captured with Asta and lay next to her on the slave ship. Her gift was the saga she recounted which enabled Asta to find peace when she finally returned to Iceland after many years away.<\/p>\n

As well as all our comments we further discussed how advanced the Ottoman Empire was, how hard life sounded in Iceland, the decline and fall of civilisations throughout history<\/p>\n

Some quotes from the book: \u201cForgetting gets easier, thinking gets harder\u201d: \u201cIt is important to be known\u201d: \u201cMen\u2019s stories come through history, women\u2019s don\u2019t\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sealwomans Gift by Sally Magnusson These are some of our comments about this book, the debut novel for Sally Magnusson. Beautifully written, loved this book, rich in wording, descriptions superb, incredible quality of writing, lots of humour even in dire circumstances, superb language, clear storylines, based on a historical event which makes it particularly interesting, no unrealistic ending. So […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cWjO-1SO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6471,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=6471","url_meta":{"origin":7242,"position":0},"title":"Library News Update","author":"Alan Williams","date":"28th August 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"WENVOE COMMUNITY LIBRARY Tel: 02920 594176 \u2013 during opening hours or wenvoelibrary@outlook.com Like and follow us on Facebook at: www.facebook.com\/WenvoeCommunityLibrary Our library At this stage we envisage that we will be staying in the existing library building for at least this winter. 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