The Prophets of Eternal Fjord
KIM LEINE, TRANS. MARTIN AITKEN
Set between the swarming, dingy alleys of late-eighteenth- century Copenhagen and the craggy, windswept wilderness of Greenland, this vast, visceral tale relates the efforts of a Danish expedition to bring civilisation to the uncivilised – and challenges us to tell the difference between the two. Its protagonist is Morten Falck, a superficially devout but incurably sceptical priest haunted by Rousseau’s aphorism that “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”.
It is 1787 and Falck forms part of the crew sailing to Denmark’s frozen colony, where he is charged with the conversion the natives. After footfall on the settlement of Sukkertoppen, the distinction between civilised Christian and primitive heathen soon becomes unclear.
