Glyn Jones's translation captures the enthusiasm, charm and humour of a great writer's first novel. Windswept Dawn is a Faeroese Under the Milk Wood revealing the whole personality of a small closely knit community. William Heinesen brings to life a whole host of vivid, larger than life character from the sectarian preacher, Reinhold Vaag, the drunken, philosophising solicitor Morberg, the well-meaning voyeur Vitus, to the firebrand shopkeeper Landrus and the bizarre teacher Balduin who is intent on reaching spiritual perfection. We see the large cast of characters battling against the elements, the hostile sea and the rough terrain while the Lutherans and the Plymouth Brethren fight for their souls in a changing world. The main character in the novel is the Faroes Island themselves. William Heinesen is generally considered to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Scandinavian novelist of the twentieth century. AUTHOR: William Heinesen (1900-1991) was born in Torshavn in the Faroe Islands. Although internationally known as a poet, an a novelist he made his living as an artist. Dedalus has also published The Black Cauldron (1949) and The Lost Musicians (1950) as part of a programme to make all his novels available in English.
