Wednesday, October 26, 2016











Tuumarsi 
by Fredrik Nielsen

Translated by Torben Hutchings

$19.95 paperback
128 pages, 4.25 x 7.5"
ISBN 978-0-9961938-3-2



Famine moves a Greenlandic family into a new settlement in the 1850s where the joys and tragedies of pre-Christian times are depicted.

Tuumarsi is a realistic depiction of the struggle for survival. The psyche and humor of the people is seen from Nielsen’s own experiences among them. A famine causes a family to pick up and relocate to fairer hunting grounds. The struggle among the settlement members to make their lives better illustrates what was to become Greenland’s desire for sovereignty from Denmark. 

Funded in part by the Danish Arts Foundation.












Kayakmen
Tales of Greenland's Seal Hunters

Collected by Signe Rink
Translated by Torben Hutchings

$19.95, paperback
128 pages, 4.25 x 7.5"
ISBN 978-0-9961938-4-9



Transcribed directly from hunters, the stories described here relate adventures in the hazardous environment of Greenland in the mid-19th century.

Greenlanders gained reliable social entertainment from the oral retelling of their legends. With the only printed material available at the time being of Christian origin, interest grew for Greenlandic stories, leading to the formation of Atuagagdliutit– the first, and still published, periodical in the country. The stories collected in Kayakmen originally appeared there. This text represents  a first hand account of the civilization of Greenlanders depicting a true picture of their age. 

Funded in part by a grant from the Danish Arts Foundation.

Monday, March 7, 2016

  







Inuit Poems and Songs
Folk Poetry of East Greenland

Edited and Introduction by William Thalbitzer                                   Translated by Torben Hutchings

$19.95, paperback
128 pages, 4.25 x 7.5"
ISBN 978-0-9961938-2-5

Having devoted his life to study of the Eskimos, their language, spiritual life and religion,
Thalbitzer found in their values his own mission to search for and preserve theirs.

“These poems erupted in the East Greenlanders heart—the human sea at the outer limit of the
north—on Earth’s most desolate and rugged shores. They were found in the living tradition of
a small, recently discovered Eskimo people that I (Thalbitzer) had gone to study. For the first time
I heard their language as it sounded on people’s lips, as it must have sounded through many generations. I understood that this was part of the Inuit people’s ancient poetry, and these songs and poems deserved to be written down for greater humanity.”
From the Introduction

Equipped with the latest phonetic methods, William Thalbitzer (1873–1958) left Denmark in 1900 to spend a year in West Greenland. Throughout his research, Thalbitzer also worked to find other possible languages showing traces of kinship with the Inuit languages. He wanted to help the Greenlanders preserve their spiritual culture and hoped that his work would strengthen the values and consciousness of the indigenous community in light of increasing interaction with the dominant culture of the Danes.


Funded in part by the Danish Arts Foundation