A book documenting corsair raids from Salé and Algiers on Iceland
The Northern Raid – The History of the Barbary Corsair Raids from Salé and Algiers on Iceland in 1627 is the first book in French to make previously unpublished Icelandic sources accessible, documenting the 17th-century corsair raids on Iceland by forces from Salé and Algiers.
Published by La Croisée des Chemins, this historical essay is based on texts never before released outside Iceland. The translations, conducted by Karl Smári, Adam Nichols, and Jade Carameaux-Jurewicz, were supported by the Icelandic Literature Center (Miðstöð íslenskra bókmennta).
With a preface by Leïla Meziane, a professor of Modern History at Hassan II University in Casablanca, the book sheds light on a little-known episode in history, previously documented only in Icelandic sources. «In the summer of 1627, two groups of Barbary corsairs attacked Iceland—one from Salé and the other from Algiers. Together, they killed dozens and abducted nearly five hundred people, cramming them into their ships and transporting them to North Africa to be sold in slave markets», notes the publisher.
The book also examines the aftermath of these raids, known in Icelandic as Tyrkjaránið, by translating key 17th-century Icelandic accounts. «These four-hundred-year-old documents provide not only detailed descriptions of the corsair raids themselves but also insights into what happened to the Icelandic captives after their transport to Salé and Algiers», the publisher adds.
Presented in an essay format, the book offers «a contemporary account by those who lived through the events». To bring this history to light, Karl Smári Hreinsson, an independent university researcher and former assistant professor of Icelandic language and culture at the University of Maryland (USA), collaborated with Adam Nichols, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, and Jade Carameaux-Jurewicz, a lecturer at Collège Montmorency in Montreal (Canada).
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