The Prophets of Eternal Fjord
The Viking colonisation of Greenland in the 10th century is a popular topic for novelists. Others have turned to the mysterious disappearance of the colony in the 15th century, but as far as I know Kim Leine is the first novelist to write about the re-colonisation in the 18th century.
The re-colonisation was led by the missionary Hans Egde, who came in search of the lost colony and, failing to find it, stayed to evangelise the Greenlanders (aka Eskimos). Introducing Christianity to a non-Christian people often has unforeseen consequences. The Prophets of Eternal Fjord were an unorthodox Christian sect that took root among the Greenlanders and became a focus for resistance to colonial rule.
That said, Leine’s book is only incidentally about the Prophets. The hero, misfit missionary Morten Falck, does not move to Eternal Fjord until page 388, and he leaves on page 432 with another 130 pages to go in this saga-length book. And what terrible things happen to everybody! – murder, judicial murder, rape, botched abortion, suicide, assisted suicide, fire, starvation, disease (messy diseases like tuberculosis and scurvy) and more. It is all told vividly with no holds barred: Scandi-noir at its darkest. If you can stomach this you are in for a feast.
The climax of the book is the great fire of Copenhagen (1795) – a wonderful description – which paradoxically is a disaster and a salvation.
Don’t let this put you off Greenland. It’s a lovely place, and even Morten Falck went back there.
