It is the 11th century, a time of struggle and hardship in what will become the province of Newfoundland. Thrand, a Viking boy from Greenland, is proud to have been chosen to go on a voyage to Leifsbudir in Northern Newfoundland. But events take a disastrous turn when Thrand is captured by the Beothuks, the “red ochre people.” On which side of the cultural divide will he ultimately stand: with his heritage, or with his new people?

Joan Clark is one of Canada's most distinguished writers. She was born in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, grew up in Sydney Mines and in Sussex, New Brunswick, and lived for twenty years in Alberta. There, she began her literary career as a children's author and, with Edna Alford, founded Dandelion, Alberta's first literary magazine. Since the mid-1980s, she has made her home in St. John's, Newfoundland. In 1991, Clark received the prestigious Marian Engel Award. In addition to Swimming Toward the Light, she is the author of three novels. The first, The Victory of Geraldine Gull, won the Canadian Authors' Association Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the Governor General's Award and the Books in Canada First Novel Award. Eriksdotter was a fictional account of the voyage to Finland led by Freydis, daughter of Erik the Red. Her most recent novel, Latitudes of Melt, is a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Caribbean and Canada region, and is a recent nominee for the international IMPAC Award.

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“Then along came Joan Clark with The Dream Carvers. This, I thought, is as close to time travel as one could hope for. Suddenly I was transported not just into the dailiness of their lives, but into their thoughts and dreams” - Polly Horvath