The Shark God: Encounters with Myth and Magic in the South Pacific - Hardcover

Montgomery, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007202482 ISBN 13: 9780007202485

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2006

Synopsis

A daring journey to confront legend and sorcery in a forgotten corner of the South Pacific.

Deep in the stacks of the Bodleian Library, a young man opens a small packet of sand, buried among crates of notes from the first missionaries to the South Pacific. A memento from the scene of a century-old murder, that envelope and its dusty contents send Charles Montgomery on a remarkable quest to find its island source in the forgotten archipelago of Melanesia.

Retracing a voyage made by his missionary great-grandfather, Montgomery seeks out remote shores where gospel and empire never took hold. He discovers communities still steeped in ‘kastom’ – the indigenous religion of spirits, shamans and sorcery – and he meets a bizarre cast of barefoot prophets, witch doctors and gun-runners. Montgomery is confronted by the ongoing struggles between the old world and the new, as Christianity vies with shark spirits and sorcery for the salvation of souls.

By turns funny and profoundly moving, ‘The Shark God’ blends travelogue with history rich in tales of magic, mischief and violence, and it paints a vivid portrait of a place where the unseen world is every bit as powerful as the physical one. As the author is drawn into the world of miracles, his adventure becomes a quest for the origins of myth and faith, and a metaphor for the transforming power of story.

About this title

About the Author

Charles Montgomery was born in 1968 and spent his formative years on a farm on Vancouver Island. He has been a writer and photojournalist for ten years, and lives in Mexico City and Vancouver. ‘The Shark God’ is his first book.

Edition details

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0007202482
• ISBN 13: 9780007202485
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384