El Silenci del Mariner[The Sailor's Silence]

Summary
Enric Descamps, a student from Sardinia, meets a dumb sailor who will tell him in writing about his life in captivity on board Algerian pirate galleys. We discover life in the Mediterranean at the end of the 17th C through the old sailor’s story: the tough life of the rowing slaves, the famous and feared Order of the Knights of Malta, the bandits that terrorized merchants.

The author
Antoni Oliver Ensenyat (Pollença, Mallorca, 1968) used to go fishing with his grandfather in summer from early childhood. His favourite hobby at night was listening to sailors’ stories. He could have put to sea, but his love of languages took him to study English Philology in Barcelona. He is now a secondary school teacher with three hobbies: his sailing ship, playing the saxo and, recently, the pleasure of writing. He was a finalist at the Guillem Cifre de Colonya 2001 Prize with his first work La Nina de Ponent. His El silenci del mariner has won the I Far de Cullera Youth Historical Narrative Prize.