The Navigators
A Journey in Search of Portugal's Lost Empire
Erika Fatland(Author)
MacLehose Press
Will be published approx. on 28. January 2027
Book
Hardback
624 pages
978-1-5294-4332-5 (ISBN)
Description
With her previous books - Sovietistan, The Border and High - Erika Fatland has established herself as an icon of international travel writing. Now she takes on a new challenge: tracing the legacy of the Portuguese seafarers whose voyages changed the course of history.
In the 15th century, Portuguese sailors sailed ever further south, driven on by their king, Henry the Navigator, and a new type of ship, known for its agility, speed and capacity for sailing against the wind: the caravel. And in 1498, Vasco da Gama found the sea route to India - and the world was never the same again.
The Portuguese empire was the first global colonial empire - and the last. It stretched from Cape Verde to Goa, from Nagasaki to the Amazon, until it unravelled in the late 20th century. Following in the wake of the caravels, Erika Fatland takes us on an epic journey around the world to learn what traces the Portuguese left behind - architecture, language, culture and government.
A phenomenal number one bestseller in Norway, where it kept Knaussgaard himself off the top spot, The Navigators is a travelogue that spans centuries as readily as miles, and allows to a whole swathe of disparate lands through a fresh new lens.
Translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson
In the 15th century, Portuguese sailors sailed ever further south, driven on by their king, Henry the Navigator, and a new type of ship, known for its agility, speed and capacity for sailing against the wind: the caravel. And in 1498, Vasco da Gama found the sea route to India - and the world was never the same again.
The Portuguese empire was the first global colonial empire - and the last. It stretched from Cape Verde to Goa, from Nagasaki to the Amazon, until it unravelled in the late 20th century. Following in the wake of the caravels, Erika Fatland takes us on an epic journey around the world to learn what traces the Portuguese left behind - architecture, language, culture and government.
A phenomenal number one bestseller in Norway, where it kept Knaussgaard himself off the top spot, The Navigators is a travelogue that spans centuries as readily as miles, and allows to a whole swathe of disparate lands through a fresh new lens.
Translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Quercus Publishing
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
32 colour photos
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-5294-4332-5 (9781529443325)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
approx. 01/2027
MacLehose Press
€16.99
Not yet available
Person
Erika Fatland was born in 1983 and studied Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. Her 2011 book, The Village of Angels, was an in situ report on the Beslan terror attacks of 2004 and she is also the author of The Year Without Summer, describing the harrowing year that followed the massacre on Utoya in 2011. For Sovietistan (2019) she was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford/Lonely Planet Debut Travel Writer of the Year, and The Border (2020) was shortlisted for the Stanfords Dolman Travel Book of the Year 2020. She speaks eight languages and lives in Oslo with her husband.