KAPTAJNEN OG ANN BARBARA -THE PROMISED LAND
By Ida Jessen
THE YEAR IS 1754. A horse-drawn wagon is pulled across the windy, desolate heathlands of Jutland. A captain sits at the helm. His name is Ludwig von Kahlen and he has come to bring the winds and sandy soil to heel. He wants to prove that the desert can be reclaimed. No one knows who owns this barren no-man’s land. But Schinkel, the cruel landowner of Hald, believes that it is his – and he spares no means to bring down his will. Then one summer day, the mysterious Ann Barbara wanders across the moors and shifts the fates of all those who cross her path.
IDA JESSEN’S NEW novel The Promised Land is a western from the Jutland heath from a time when the land was still to be conquered. It’s about a fierce and uncompromising man and the woman who became his ally. An intense and dramatic story of the struggles against the raw forces of nature, of big dreams and even bigger sacrifices, of revenge and discipline, love, loss and the purest of evil.
ABOUT THE BOOK
First published by Gyldendal, 2020
RIGHTS SOLD
Denmark, Gyldendal
Poland, Wydawnictwo Replika
Sweden, Historiska Media
REVIEWS
“Underplayed and poignant, Jessen’s heathland drama of obsession, dependence and unspoken love is propelled by unerring prose. It’s a cracking read.”
– Martin Aitken, translator
“Ida Jessen has written a formidable novel that thrives by virtue of strong women and a mysterious man. The plot is refined, and the intrigues tower high on the Jutlandic heath.”
– Politiken
“A monumental and historical epic with prairie poetry and pioneer spirit… Unusual and unusually fascinating.”
– Berlingske
“It is first and foremost a story about power, love and revenge and about a God-given world, where ‘life is as it should be’. Jessen allows her well-told and surprising story to progress slowly, planting seeds for the ultimate showdown along the way… With The Captain and Ann Barbara, [Jessen] has stepped back 250 years in time. However, there is also something completely current about it. Immigrants and hated population groups and the tensions that accompany them are only too well known today… Abuse of power has always been a scourge.”
– Kristeligt dagblad
BOOKS
Fiction
