Prophets of Eternal Fjord

Presented in partnership with the UW Department of Scandinavian Studies, THE PROPHETS OF ETERNAL FJORD is an award-winning international sensation, a sweeping tale of a Greenlandic community torn apart by the forces of colonialism, and the one priest whose wavering guidance will determine its fate.

In 1787, Morten Falck sails to the rugged, forlorn outpost of Sukkertoppen. The newly ordained priest seeks freedom from the feverish city of Copenhagen and hopes to convert the Inuit community to the Danish church. But Sukkertoppen—a far cry from the parish he envisioned—is already simmering with the threat of dissent; natives from neighboring villages have come together to reject Danish rule and establish their own thriving settlement atop Eternal Fjord.

It falls to Falck to eliminate their influence, but he’s woefully ill prepared for the task. A hapless and at times terrifically destructive mix between Falstaff and Arthur Dimmesdale, Falck’s exploits in this brutal backwater involve an illicit intermarriage, an accidental explosion after a night curled around a keg, a botched surgical procedure, a love affair with a mysterious and solitary widow, and an apprenticeship with an eager young scholar that ends in tragedy.

As Falck becomes more deeply involved with those in his care his ambitious catechist, a lonely trader’s wife, and the heretical prophets atop Eternal Fjord––the priest’s conviction is soon compromised by a growing compassion for the indigenous community. Charting the volcanic events that intertwine these seemingly disparate lives, Leine illuminates the brutal and tender human impulses of those seeking freedom and redemption.

A magnificent historical saga in the tradition of Carsten Jensen’s We, the Drowned; THE PROPHETS OF ETERNAL FJORD is a stark, violent, and frequently heartbreaking story of the fragile borders drawn between the powerful and the powerless.