"Exotic...erotic...
Ocean Sea
is highly romantic and breathtakingly lyrical."—
The New York Times Book Review
With
Silk
, his first novel to appear in English, Alessandro Baricco immediately proved himself to be a magical storyteller. With
, he has been acclaimed as the successor to Italo Calvino, and a major voice in modern literature.
In
, Alessandro Baricco presents a hypnotizing postmodern fable of human malady—psychological, existential, erotic—and the sea as a means of deliverance. At the Almayer Inn, a remote shoreline hotel, an artist dips his brush in a cup of ocean water to paint a portrait of the sea. A scientist pens love letters to a woman he has yet to meet. An adulteress searches for relief from her proclivity to fall in love. And a sixteen-year-old girl seeks a cure from a mysterious condition which science has failed to remedy. When these people meet, their fates begin to interact as if by design. Enter a mighty tempest and a ghostly mariner with a thirst for vengeance, and the Inn becomes a place where destiny and desire battle for the upper hand. Playful, provocative, and ultimately profound,
is a novel of striking originality and wisdom.