Overview

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.

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Born in 1897, Christiane Ritter was an Austrian activist 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. Christiane Ritter died in Vienna in 2000 at the age of 103. SARA WHEELER is the author of many works of nonfiction, including Terra Incognita, The Magnetic North (winner of the Banff Adventure Travel Prize), and Travels in a Thin Country. She contributes to a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, Condé Nast Traveler, Vanity Fair, and The Daily Telegraph, and broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio. Wheeler lives in London. Rebecca Gallagher is a multiple Audie Award-nominated narrator who has recorded over 100 titles with her warm and inviting voice. She enjoys working in a variety of genres, including memoir, mystery, humor, and inspirational. Having met her husband while performing in local theater, they enjoy working together as narrators, including the occasional dual narration projects. When she isn't behind the mic, Rebecca enjoys creating in a variety of media as a visual artist in her home studio. She lives just outside of Chicago with her husband, Dean, and their two daughters.

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