The Navigators

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