Product Description

Kauffmann follows in the footsteps of the 18th century sailor Yves-Joseph Kerguelen, who gave his name to the archipelago he discovered in the Indian Ocean. When he made his discovery, Kerguelen was convinced he had found Hell. He did not go ashore and it was left to Captain Cook two years later to name its grey beach and to describe the towering black arch that astounded sailors for hundreds of years. While he was working in the Lebabnon as a journalist in 1985, Jean-Paul Kauffmann was kidnapped and not released until 1988. Although the subject is never mentioned, it lies just beneath the surface of his writing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #650032 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-18
• Original language: French
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Voyage to Desolation Island was first published in France in 1993. How come, then, it has taken so long to cross the Channel? Had the book been gathering dust, an undiscovered masterpiece? Or was the French so tricky that it took eight years to translate? The answer, sadly, is almost certainly more prosaic, owing more to cultural parochialism than anything else. Almost every European country tends to have annexed one or more of the world's more remote areas which, over time, have become part of that nation's consciousness. In Britain, for example, there are South Georgia and the Falkland Islands, a windswept archipelago of no strategic importance some 8,000 miles away, but one that was apparently worth fighting the Argentines for in the early 1980s. The French have the Kerguelen Islands, possibly the most desolate land area on the globe, situated midway between Africa and Australia, just above the Antarctic circle. The islands were first sighted in 1772 by a French seafarer, and for the last 200 years have largely bypassed the British psyche--until the Times columnist Matthew Parris made a big splash by hightailing there two years ago, which presumably explains the timing of this translation. Those who enjoyed Parris' newspaper reports will appreciate the more lyrical expansive writing of Jean-Paul Kauffmann. Unlike Parris, Kauffmann is no stranger to hardship--he was held hostage in Beirut for three years in the mid-1980s--and he appears to relish the hardships.

His writing is often as bleak and sparse as the islands themselves, and there is often an emotional distance between himself and the people he meets; Kauffmann is far more connected when he recounts the islands' history than when he lives its present. Voyage to Desolation Island is a wonderful meditation on solitude and alienation, but one can't help wondering whether Kauffmann doesn't unwittingly reveal as much about the price he paid for three years in captivity as he has about the Kerguelens. --John Crace

Review
"Written between every line are the sufferings of his own captivity; his own struggle to come to terms with the loss of freedom, hope and time" Andrea Stuart, The Independent of The Dark Room at Longwood; "The story of Napoleon's last years is beautifully interwoven with Kauffmann's attempt to understand how Napoleon felt in captivity... On these pages the very ghost of loneliness walks, vaporous, interminable" Susan Salter-Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

About the Author
Jean-Paul Kauffmann was born in 1944. A journalist, he was kidnapped in Beirut in May 1985 and was not released until May 1988. He is currently the editor of L'Amateur de Cigare. His The Dark Room at Longwood, in Patricia Clancy's translation, won the Scott Moncrieff Prize for 2000.

Customer Reviews

A beautiful evocation of a strange place
I bought 'Voyage to Desolation Island' because I visited the Kerguelen Islands a few years ago and a visitor to my website recommended the book to me.

The islands seem to captivate some people, even those who've never been there, and Jean-Paul Kauffman had obviously been fascinated for some time before his visit. His descriptions of the landscapes and weather are fantastic, taking me right back to my own time out in the field there. He's not so good when it comes to describing the social life on the base at Port aux Francais.

The translation to English is generally very good, only slipping up on some technical and specialist terms. Unfortunately some idiot at the publishing house decided to translate the place names on the map into English as well, although they are in French in the text. Measurements have also been translated, resulting in lots of mental Fahrenheit to Celsius conversions.

Kaufmann also writes well about the history of the islands, tying this in with his travels. The melancholy feeling of the descriptions of the present is echoed by the stories of failed colonisation attempts and the disgrace of the islands' discoverer.

If you have a yearning to read about remote and windswept places (and they don't come much more remote or windswept than the Kerguelens!) this is an excellent choice of book. If you want something cheerful and uplifting steer clear.