Magellania—the region around the Strait of Magellan—is the home of Kaw-djer, a mysterious man of Western origin whom the indigenous people consider a demigod. A man whose motto is “Neither God nor master,” he has shunned Western civilization and its hypocrisies in order to live peacefully on an island claimed by no one. But when a storm strands a thousand immigrants on his island and they ask him to be the leader of their colony, Kaw-djer must decide whether to help them live and prosper in this foreign land at the end of the world or leave them to their fate.
Jules Verne penned Magellania in 1897, following the death of his brother and at a time when his own health was beginning to fail. Originally titled Land of Fire and At the End of the World, Magellania was intended to reflect Verne’s deeply held religious and political beliefs as well as examine his own mortality.
This first English translation of the original manuscript shows Magellania to be a unique, forceful novel that widens the scope of Verne’s literary legacy.
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