The Traveler's Tree

Bruno Bontempelli's The Traveler's Tree is a spellbinding and most unusual tale of desperation and suspense, which takes place in the eighteenth-century maritime setting Patrick O'Brian made so familiar to American readers. A modern fable reminiscent of Camus's classic The Plague, The Traveler's Tree is at its core an exploration of man's nature.

Somewhere in the Caribbean Sea the French ship Entremetteuse lies stranded without a breeze, its crew racked by starvation and disease, its wood ro...