Sunday Interview. Isabelle Autissier: "One in two breaths we take is thanks to marine plankton."
Navigator and novelist, Isabelle Autissier recounts, in La Fille du grand hiver , the life of Arnarulunguaq, an Inuit woman from the beginning of the 20th century who set off by sled with the explorer Knud Rasmussen from Greenland to the Bering Strait, to meet the peoples of the Far North.
Isabelle Autissier on her sailboat, the Ada 2. Photo by Patrice Terraz
Sailor, the first woman to complete a solo round-the-world sailing race in competition, Isabelle Autissier has published her sixth novel.
How did you become interested in Arnarulunguaq's life?
"I've sailed to Greenland five times. I discovered it by becoming interested in the history of this region. It's very well known to Greenlanders. Arnarulunguaq has an incredible story. Her journey is unique for a Greenlandic woman at the beginning of the 20th century. She had zero chance of ending up as a half-ethnologist, of making this great journey to Alaska. The destiny of Inuit women at that time was to chew skins at the bottom of the igloo."
Was it important for you to highlight a female figure?
"Yes, partly because I'm a woman, and partly because the fact that she's a woman makes her destiny even more exceptional. In my books, I regularly put women in the spotlight, as in Suddenly Alone or...
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