A captain of a container ship allows her crew to swim in the open sea.
After that, nothing is the same as it was before.
book tip.
Note to our readers:
If you make a purchase via the links included, we receive a commission from partners.
This changes nothing for you.
A huge container ship makes its way past the Azores.
On board twenty nameless officers, engineers, sailors.
At their helm is a female captain who has fought for and maintained her position in the rough world of men over the past few years.
Nothing shakes their position of power.
She sets the pace, her crew follows, until a few days later the first officer asks if they can all swim in the open sea.
Mariette Navarro "About the Sea": About the book
+
Mariette Navarro "Across the Sea"
© Philippe Malone/Artman
On a trip to the tropics, just behind the Azores, the crew of a container ship makes an unusual request to the captain: They would like to go swimming here, on the open sea.
That has never happened before.
To her own surprise, the captain allows it.
She remains alone on the ship, with all the doubts about whether she made the right decision.
Will the men come back?
The ship is slowing down, a mysterious mist is coming up.
Why can the captain suddenly hear the heart of the ship beating?
And why, of all times, does her father come to mind, who once went to sea himself and hasn't spoken a word since one crossing?
blurb / art man
His boss agrees.
Engines and radar are switched off, the lifeboats are lowered into the water.
The crew moves away from the huge container ship and slides into the cool water.
First hesitant swimming movements, which then turn into general joy.
Only the captain remains on board the ship, watching her crew swim.
Don't miss any new release.
Subscribe to our free book newsletter here.
The writer Mariette Navarro had made a name for herself as a dramaturge and with her poetry texts.
The sentences she uses to describe the sea are short and concise.
Even if she and her team remain nameless, the reader develops an intimate relationship with the characters that one would not think possible after the first few pages.
When the team comes back after the swimming trip and the count counts 21 instead of 20 people, you feel like you are in a lake crime thriller for a moment.
Everything gets mixed up.
The previous security no longer exists.
Mariette Navarro "Across the Sea": Conclusion
An airy, light book, powerfully eloquent, which lets the image of the calm and sometimes inhumanly roaring sea rise in front of the inner eye.
Exciting, profound, with unfathomable figures.
A reading pleasure.
Mariette Navarro "Across the Sea"
Translated from the French by Sophie Beese
2022, Kunstmann ISBN-13 978-3-95614-524-7
Price: hardcover €20, e-book €15.99
Order here!
Mariette Navarro
Mariette Navarro, born in 1980, is a writer and dramaturge.
She co-edits a series of poetic prose texts with the small French publishing house Cheyne, including her own, “Alors Carcasse” (2011, Robert Walser Prize 2012).
List of rubrics: © Philippe Malone/Kunstmann
