Finding Endurance - by Darrel Bristow-Bovey (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

'Engaging, absorbing and crammed with marvelous stories, Finding Endurance is a tale about exploring the cold, told with much warmth.' MICK HERRON, author, Slow Horses

'Tender, heartfelt and lyrical' PETINA GAPPAH, author, Out of Darkness, Shining Light

Since the discovery of the wreck of Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance on the bed of the Antarctic ocean, the world has been enthralled anew by one of the greatest stories of all time.

Acclaimed South African writer Darrel Bristow-Bovey, himself a Shackleton aficionado, revisits this dramatic event, which managed to sweep the tide of anger and rancor off the timelines and front pages of the world.

He asks how so many ordinary people, who don't know a nunatak from a barquentine, were so moved at the finding of a small wooden ship once sailed by a half-forgotten Irishman. In re-examining the story and its players, he presents new details and a new understanding of the courage and hardship of the Endurance voyage and reminds us of how extraordinary humans can be. Not all is lost, and what has been lost can be regained: the ocean has given us something back.

What's more, we are reminded that miracles still happen: human miracles, performed by flawed people in helpless situations.

Review Quotes

"Shackleton's Antarctic expedition, the loss and resurgence of his ship, and memories of growing up in South Africa inform Darrel Bristow-Bovey's entrancing literary memoir Finding Endurance, about the romantic spirit of adventure and inspiring, myth-making stories. . . . Complemented by beautiful elements of nature writing, biography, and the heroics of polar exploration, this book is a tender tribute to family. . . . With elegiac considerations of subjects including time, hope, and ice, Finding Endurance is a grace-filled memoir about a father and a resilient Antarctic legend." --Foreword Reviews

About the Author

Darrel Bristow-Bovey is a prize-winning screenwriter and travel writer and a newspaper and magazine columnist. He's the author of five books which have been translated into seven languages, including Spanish, Estonian and Portuguese. He was born in South Africa, studied under JM Coetzee and Andre Brink, and currently divides his time between Cape Town, the UK and a hillside on the Greek Peloponnese. His fascination with the Endurance expedition began as a small boy, when his father first told him that he had been south with Shackleton. He still believes him.