Jan de Hartog’s Call of the Sea grabbed me from its first words, and it was almost impossible for me to put it down.
After I finished it, I tracked down every single one of his books and read them more or less in the order of publication. de Hartog was nominated for a Nobel Prize for literature, and yet, like other fine writers from mid-century, he is largely forgotten today. de Hartog’s first book Captain Jan was written in Dutch, and like Conrad, de Hartog switched to English and never again wrote a novel in his native language, and like Conrad, de Hartog is a proven master of the English language.