The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson

When we think of slavery in this modern age, we quite rightly look at the systematic abduction of Africans to work the plantations of North America. In fact, one could almost say that slavery in the public’s consciousness has become synonymous with what we know about the plight of people subjected to that life.

However, Sally Magnusson’s book is enlightening in that the people who are taken from their homes and used as slaves in her historical fiction are Icelanders. In this story of fiction, Magnusson takes documented sources of the raid from the 1600s and from them, weaves a tale which I devoured, such was its intensity, an intensity that manifested itself in so many ways throughout the events that unfolded in my reading of the book.

The story is centred around Asta, who along with her husband and two children, is kidnapped by pirates and taken on a ship to Algiers, where she is bought along with two of her three children, her having given birth on the ship itself in all of its filth and depravity. Her son, however, is taken elsewhere to who knows what fate and she, as expected, constantly searches for a glimpse of him or information about him whenever she is able. He is only 10.

The life that Asta is sold into is not, in many ways, a bad one. She is fed and she is comfortable for the most part, having been taken on as a seamstress. It is not the same for others who are shackled and whipped.

But it is not the life she has known and there is, in the story, this battle that takes place for Asta between what she’s had and what she now has. Her children are her world but she has to continually face that she has no control over their destiny and that they will be taken away from her.

Asta is faced with the prospect of never returning home, despite there being a chance of a ransom being paid for the return of her and her countrymen. But what if it comes too late?

There is a lot too in this book, more than I can express in 400 words. I would urge you to read it. There is love, heart-wrenching scenarios that I daren’t contemplate, acceptance, passion but above all, I think there is humanity, exemplary storytelling and great characterisation.

Excellent!