At the bottom of a rose-painted wooden chest, the author finds a sorrowful letter from America, sent from Kelliher, Minnesota, in March 1951. With this old sign of life, he begins searching for answers. What happened to his granduncle who, in 1904, left his home in Norway, crossed the Atlantic, and wasn’t heard from for forty-seven years?
Jon Magnus (1948-) is a former journalist and foreign correspondent. He has been covering news worldwide for forty years. This time, he has written a non-fiction page-turner about Edwin and Esther from Tørdal in Telemark, known as Eivind and Aaste in their home country. The book takes the reader on a journey from the past to the present. It gives us a vibrant portrait of these individuals, their surroundings, and their struggle for life while offering perspectives on migration then and now and people's motives for leaving their home country.
Around 200 years ago, the Norwegian emigration to America began. Hundreds of thousands traveled. Most of them didn't make it to the headlines. This saga pulls two of them out of oblivion.