Aniara - A Review of Man in Time and Space

The great Swedish writer Harry Martinson published his masterpiece, Aniara, during the height of the Cold War -- right after the Soviet Union announced that it had exploded the hydrogen bomb. Aniara is the story of a luxurious space ship, loaded with 8,000 evacuees, fleeing an Earth made uninhabitable by Man's technological arrogance. A malfunction knocks the craft off course, taking these would-be Mars colonists on an irreversible journey into deep space. Aniara is a book of prophecy, a panoramic view of humanity's possible fate. It has been translated into seven languages and adapted into a popular avant-garde opera. This volume is the first complete English language version and received the prestigious American Scandinavian Foundation Award. Eight thousand people aboard the space ship Aniara are diverted off course and plunge headlong in to the "void" where they must create a world in which they will be irretrievably trapped.