Research Catalog
Serpent in paradise
- Title
- Serpent in paradise / Dea Birkett.
- Author
- Birkett, Dea, 1958-
- Publication
- New York : Anchor Books, 1997.
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
---|---|---|---|---|
Text | Request in advance | DU800 .B53 1997 | Off-site |
Details
- Description
- xvi, 296 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
- Summary
- Lost in the surf of the South Pacific lies a speck of volcanic rock. Home to thirty-eight islanders - descendants of the Bounty mutineers - Pitcairn has no cars, no crime, no doctor, and no regular contact with the outside world. For two centuries "Fletcher Christian's children," whose culture and language are a bizarre blend of Polynesian and eighteenth-century English, have lived out a unique social experiment.
- Each year the islanders are inundated with requests from paradise seekers obsessed by the island's Edenic image, and by the Bounty legend - which has inspired five movies, countless books and articles, a Bounty museum, and Bounty stamps. Almost all visitors are refused. But after two years' persistence and a four-thousand-mile sea voyage aboard a chemical tanker, acclaimed British travel writer and journalist Dea Birkett realized her dream of reaching Pitcairn.
- The islanders seemed welcoming and soon wove her into their web of intrigue, decades-old disputes, and thwarted desires. But as she came to understand that being a Pitcairner means more than climbing cliffs and weaving baskets, Birkett saw the darker face of paradise. Pitcairners sacrifice their individuality to the good of the group; and without any way to evade their neighbors' watchful eyes, the islanders have no privacy.
- With no means of escape, Birkett discovered that this island paradise had become at last a kind of prison.
- Subjects
- ISBN
- 038548870X (hc : alk. paper)
- LCCN
- 97010890
- OCLC
- 36509928
- ocm36509928
- Owning Institutions
- Columbia University Libraries