Author(s): Diana Souhami

Fiction

Everyone knows the story of Robinson Crusoe, the sailor cast away on a desert island for nearly 30 years. But even more gripping is the true story of Alexander Selkirk, the man behind Daniel Defoe's novel.

Selkirk was a pirate and a buccaneer who sailed on the South Seas on looting expeditions for gold and treasure. In 1703 he joined an expedition whose object was to plunder French and Spanish ships. Eventually they reached the island of Juan Fernandez, off the coast of Chile, where Selkirk opted to maroon himself. Suddenly solitude and silence were imposed and his only relationship was to the island and to himself.

He learnt to kill goats with cudgels and use their skins for coats and shoes. He hollowed out a canoe and circumnavigated the island. In 1709 Selkirk spotted two ships from his cliff-top lookout. They saw his fire and the next morning landed on Juan Fernandez - to be greeted by an unrecognisable savage-looking man incoherent with emotion. He sailed back with them to civilisation where he 'bewailed his return to the world'. Selkirk died in 1720 back at sea, of yellow fever.

++ Winner, Whitbread Award (Biography Section) 2001 ++

Paperback (B-Format)