Maelstrom

By Céline Hudréaux. Published by Bries. 

Hardcover, 120 pages, B&W, 2019. 

(description translated with Google translate!)

The Maalstroom, the infamous whirlpool south of the Norwegian Lofoten archipelago, inspired more than one writer. The most famous story is probably 'A Descent into the Maelström' by Edgar Allan Poe. In it, an apparently old man tells how a few years earlier he and his two brothers were dragged into the Maalstroom on their fishing boat and how he was the only one to survive.

Céline Hudréaux reworked Poe's text into a poetic, textless, etched visual novel. Her etchings tell the unfortunate fate of the three brothers against the background of life and work in a fishing village around the middle of the 19th century. Fortunately, Hudréaux does not strictly adhere to the story as it was penned by Poe. The freedoms she allows herself fit in seamlessly with the atmosphere and spirit of the original story. So do her drawing style and her favorite medium, the etching.

As an extra, the short story is included at the back of the book, in a Dutch translation by Simon Vestdijk.

*includes an English translation insert.