Take The Ancient Mariner, Robinson Crusoe, medieval legends and dastardly deeds, and combine them with liberal portions of suspense, romance and intellectual excitement in a marvellous seafaring adventure – a quest for exotic Pacific islands and for answers to eternal questions. What is matter? God? Love? Set in the seventeenth century, in Italy, France and on the high seas, Umberto Eco’s brilliant novel is full of the many elements that have delighted his millions of readers worldwide – philosophy, natural history, courtly love, theology, political intrigue, cosmology, delightful puns, puzzles and high-spirited humour – all enchantingly, beautifully written. The year is 1643. Roberto, a young nobleman, survives war, the Bastille, exile and shipwreck, and meets inventors of fantastic machines, a wounded dog, a mad Jesuit priest, and even madder Englishman, his exclusive and beloved Lilia, and the mystic Dove as he voyages to a Pacific island straddling the date meridian. There he waits now, alone on the mysteriously deserted Daphne, anchored just across the date-line from an island bouded by treacherous reefs: the island of the day before. If he coud reach it, time – and his misfortunes – might be reversed. But first he must learn to swim…

Kirjailija

Umberto Eco (1932 Alessandria, Italia – 2016, Milano) oli italialainen kirjailija, keskiajan estetiikan tutkija ja Bolognan yliopiston semiotiikan professori.

Umberto Eco, Wikipedia (fi)