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Biographical note: Andrea Heiberg was accidentally born a few yards from Karen Blixen's home in Denmark on Hemmingway's birthday in 1955, a fortuitous beginning. Award-winning playwright and writer, her plays have been performed on Danish television and for local amateur theatre. In 2006, after walking the Camino in Spain, she had a compulsion to write her story—but in English. After almost thirty years of teaching, Heiberg moved to Sejer Island, a place that continues to inspire her love of writing.
BIC Basic
EAN13: 9781844718702
ISBN: 9781844718702
Author: Andrea Heiberg
Title: Next Stop: Sejer Island
Series: Salt Modern Fiction
Product class: BC
Language: eng
Audience: General/trade
BIC subject category: FA
Publisher: Salt Publishing
Pub date: 15-Jun-11
Extent: 96pp
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 7 mm
Weight: 144 gms
Supplier: Gardners Books
Supplier: Ingram Book Group
Supplier: Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability: IP
Price: GBP 8.99
Price: USD 14.95
Rights: World
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description/annotation: Next Stop: Sejer Island is a collection of short stories, pieces of lives and incidents from a small Danish community. From the school teacher who teaches a music lesson near a burned-down schoolhouse to the fisherman who knows the last fish isn’t caught, hope and humour triumph, with this stubborn, determined people.
Main description: Next Stop: Sejer Island is a collection of short stories, pieces of lives and incidents assembled from a small Danish island community. Every inhabitant plays a role, and bonding is significant. And it is within these bonds the stories develop. What do citizens of Sejer Island do when there is no drinking water? What do they do when there are no fish? How do they survive the cold, cold winters?
No matter what the obstacle, there is always an answer. The everyday hero, the one who makes the wheels turn, comes through again and again. The school teacher who teaches a music lesson under a shade tree near the rubble of a burned-down schoolhouse or the fisherman who knows that the last fish isn’t caught yet.
This collection offers stories in which hope and humour generally triumph, along with a stubborn, determined people. Characters are more often moved to action by good intentions, and change comes as a slow, steady progression. Yet what remains is a blessed contentment with familiar island ways.
Next Stop: Sejer Island reminds us that “no man is an island.”
Table of contents:
A Kingdom for a Kalashnikov
Never Has There Been a Shade
Interpreting Golf Rule Number 25 Part B on Sejer Island
Rule Britannia
Where There is Fish, There is Hope
Solemente Para Tus Ojos
Numbers Never Lie
When Things Are Pure View excerpt as PDF:  Click here to view a sample ( KB)
Excerpt from book:
Where There is Fish, There is Hope
From the ferry, passengers follow a fishing boat as it struggles through the waves. In the row of seats by the window, they stretch to watch the light blue, wooden fishing boat bob up and down. It looks so proud, this little vessel, with its raised nose challenging the waves by going right up against them and its buoys to the rear, fixed, with red marking flags fluttering in the breeze when it heads for the bottom, having conquered yet another swell. It’s a touching sight, seeing this hard working boat on the deep blue sea, advancing.
Most of the passengers know that it won’t be long before this boat will have to give in and let the bigger trawlers from the far away west coast take over its fishing rights. Time is running out for the small fishing boats, and the locals know this might be the last time they see Ernest W. Jensen out in the open steering his proud ship, KA71, to the jetty of Sejer Island. Ernest is the shadow in the cabin who keeps his boat steady, chugging through the waters down below the starboard deck of the towering ferry.
‘Hope he’s got lobsters down there,’ someone says and breaks the silence. The window passengers turn to one another. They are men returning for the weekend after a week’s work in the fish factory on the mainland.
‘Na, guess he’s got flounders like everybody else, and they’re only two a Euro.’
‘He’ll get paid way below two Euro for himself.’
They shake their heads.
Today, this last Friday of March, the passengers’ lounge is filled with people. Fridays are always busy, but it’s the first day of the summer schedule, so besides the fish factory workers, locals, and the older students, there are the tourists, the foreigners. They are easy to spot by the way they dress because the island attracts artists, but on this service one man in particular stands out. He sits motionless facing the cafeteria like any other heavy Mafioso who by accident is dropped down on this Danish ferry. He sits in the lounge with his black sunglasses, his Spanish hat, and a black leather vest, and he’s watched as he waits for a woman to bring him coffee. She looks like an old hippie. What a mismatch!
Still standing and pointing with a mug of coffee, she says, ‘Oh, look there. There’s a fishing boat. A real old fishing boat.’
The man, motionless, says, ‘Where?’
‘Look to your left. It’s a real cute fishing boat.’
‘Oh, see this, see that,’ the sunglasses man says.
The woman sits down. ‘You can’t see it from here. You need to stand up.
With exaggerated difficulties, the sunglasses man gets up. He brings his mug of coffee to the windows and stands there for a while. ‘Looks like a toy ship from a fair or something. Yeah, it’s cute all right.’ His voice is clear and strong like that of an opera singer.
‘You don’t need to speak so loud,’ his hippie companion whispers.
‘He’d better be careful that he isn’t run down by the ferry.’
‘Not so loud,’ the woman says.
‘That boat wouldn’t stand a chance if it was run down by the ferry, that’s all.’
The woman stands up and walks towards him. ‘It’s unlikely, though. Come sit with me at the table, people are staring at us’
The ferry suddenly turns sharp northeast, now heading for the boat’s course, heading to cross it. The fishing boat aims straight for the ferry for some time, but then turns.
‘Oh, that bastard turned, too,’ the sunglasses man says triumphantly. ‘I like that. Like steering a nutshell, that’s what he’s doing.’
The staring fish factory workers’ expressions make the sunglasses man study his vest to see if he spilt something. He finds nothing wrong, so he nods to the workers, but they’ve already turned their faces to the island coming up in the distance. They are looking towards home. They catch sight of the church council, lining up on the harbor wall, preparing to welcome the new pastor. They see tourists with white plastic bags, ready to buy flounders from the incoming fishing boat. They see their wives.
Unpublished endorsement: How can a tiny Danish island of only 400 inhabitants be turned into a microcosm? Andrea Heiberg has the answer in this collection of stories, all of which show human insight and understanding combined with humour and a natural gift of storytelling. W. Glyn Jones
Emeritus Professor of Scandinavian Studies, University of East Anglia. Unpublished endorsement: Next Stop Sejer Island is a must-have collection for the short story lover. Andrea Heiberg writes with great affection for her characters, and these island folks have stayed with me long after the reading. Do yourself a favour and buy this book! Amy Harke-Moore |
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