Ocean Sea

„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 Ocean Sea, he has been acclaimed as the successor to Italo Calvino, and a major voice in modern literature.

In Ocean Sea, 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, Ocean Sea is a novel of striking originality and wisdom.

Editorial Reviews

„Ocean Sea has the air of a long-established classic.“-Salon

„Alessandro Baricco is a novelist who weaves words into a fabric as delicate as Venetian lace.“-Chicago Tribune

„The remarkable Baricco is artistic kin to his compatriot, Roberto Calasso. Both are originals; both weave patterns of myth and human story and the airy and earthly connections between them.“ -Los Angeles Times
– From the Publisher