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A woman in the polar night

In 1934, the painter Christiane Ritter leaves her comfortable home to live for a year with her husband on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen. She thinks it will be a relaxing trip, a chance to "read thick books in the remote quiet and, not least, sleep to my heart's content", but when Christian...

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Main Author: Ritter, Christiane (Author)
Other Authors: Degras, Jane, 1905- (Translator), Wheeler, Sara (writer of foreword.)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
German
Published: London : Pushkin Press Classics, 2024.
Subjects:
Ritter, Christiane.
Ritter, Christiane > Travel > Norway > Spitsbergen Island.
Spitsbergen Island (Norway) > Description and travel.
Autobiographies.
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Summary:In 1934, the painter Christiane Ritter leaves her comfortable home to live for a year with her husband on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen. She thinks it will be a relaxing trip, a chance to "read thick books in the remote quiet and, not least, sleep to my heart's content", but when Christiane arrives she is shocked to realise that they are to live in a tiny ramshackle hut on the shores of a lonely fjord, hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement, battling the elements every day, just to survive. This luminous classic memoir tells the inspiring tale of a woman who found freedom and fulfilment in the adventure of a lifetime.
Item Description:"The classic memoir of a year in the Arctic wilderness"--cover.
First published as: Eine Frau erlebt die Polarnacht in 1938.
"First published by Pushkin Press in 2019. This edition published in 2024" -- Title page verso.
Physical Description:216 pages : illustrations, map ; 20 cm
ISBN:9781805330899
1805330896
Author Notes:Born in 1897, Christiane Ritter was an Austrian artist and author. She wrote A Woman in the Polar Night on her return to Austria from Spitsbergen in 1934. It has since become a classic of travel writing, never going out of print in German and being translated into seven other languages. 'A year in the Arctic should be compulsory to everyone,' she would say in her later years. 'Then you will come to realise what's important in life and what isn't.' Ritter died in Vienna in 2000 at the age of 103.

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