The Captain and Ann Barbara

The year is 1754. A horse-drawn wagon is pulled across the windy, desolate heaths of Jutland. A captain sits at the helm. His name is Ludwig von Kahlen and he has come to bring the winds and sandy soil to heel. No one knows who owns this barren no-man’s land but Schinkel, the cruel landowner of Hald, believes that it is his - and he spares no means to bring down his will. Then one summer day, the mysterious Ann Barbara wanders across the moors and shifts the fates of all those around her.

"The Captain and Ann Barbara" is a Nordic western set in the middle of the 1700s – a time when the uncultivated lands had yet to be conquered. It is about a doggedly uncompromising German captain, his fight against the forces of nature, his great dreams and even greater sacrifices - and about the woman who becomes his beloved and ally. An epic and brutal story about cold war between unrelenting men, about wanderlust and revenge, discipline and love, ruin and the purest of evils.

About the author 

Ida Jessen (b. 1964) is an award-winning author, who is widely considered to be the master of psychological realism in contemporary Nordic fiction. Jessen’s popular breakthrough came with the Hvium Trilogy, which earned her the Booksellers Prize, the Golden Laurel and a nomination for the Nordic Council Literature Prize. "The Captain and Ann Barbara" is her latest bestselling work, which is critically acclaimed and nominated for the Readers’ Choice Awards.