A Woman in the Polar Night

Travel

Ritter, Christiane

Travel Writing

Greystone Books

For most of us, the Arctic conjures up images of freezing and forsaken solitude. Hence, Austrian painter Christiane Ritter was at best ambivalent when her husband asked her to join him on the small Arctic island of Spitsbergen in a tarpaulin-covered hut sixty miles from the nearest neighbor. Yet his descriptions were filled not with cold and hardship but tales of remarkable wildlife, alluring light shows, and treks over water and ice. Won over, Ritter joined her husband and grew to love life on this small isle off Norway's coast, and in this charming memoir she describes her experiences, with insight and wry humor. Whether or not you ever plan a trip to the Arctic, A Woman in the Polar Night offers thoughtful reflections on isolation and the place the natural world holds in the human psyche.

Sports & Outdoors

Winter Sports

University of Alaska Press

"An epic story, elegantly told and full of mystery." -- Maggie Shipstead, author of Great Circle A rediscovered classic memoir - the mesmerizingly beautiful account of one woman's year spent living in a remote hut in the Arctic This rediscovered classic memoir tells the incredible tale of a woman defying society's expectations to find freedom and peace in the adventure of a lifetime. In 1934, the painter Christiane Ritter leaves her comfortable life in Austria and travels to the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen, to spend a year there with her husband. 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 realize 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. At first, Christiane is horrified by the freezing cold, the bleak landscape the lack of equipment and supplies... But as time passes, after encounters with bears and seals, long treks over the ice and months on end of perpetual night, she finds herself falling in love with the Arctic's harsh, otherworldly beauty, gaining a great sense of inner peace and a new appreciation for the sanctity of life.

A Woman in the Polar Night (Pushkin Press Classics)

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Pushkin Press Classics

Une femme dans la nuit polaire

Reference

Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

DENOEL

Eine Frau erlebt die Polarnacht.

Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH & Co. KG / Ullstein Tas

Eine Frau erlebt die Polarnacht

Ullstein Taschenbuchvlg

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Books by Ritter, Christiane