Los Náufragos del Wager / The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they had a very different story to tell. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound. Most powerfully, he unearths the deeper meaning of the events, showing that it was not only the Wager's captain and crew who were on trial - it was the very idea of empire.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Del autor bestseller #1 del New York Times, creador de Los asesinos de la luna de las flores y La ciudad perdida de Z, llega una historia fascinante sobre naufragios, supervivencia y salvajismo, la cual desemboca en una corte marcial donde se revela una verdad impactante.

El 28 de enero de 1742, una embarcaci鏮 desvencijada con la madera y las velas parchadas llega a la costa de Brasil. En el interior hab燰 treinta hombres escu嫮idos, a duras penas vivos y con una extraordinaria historia que contar. Eran los sobrevivientes del Wager, un barco brit嫕ico de su majestad el rey, que parti?de Inglaterra en 1740 en una misi鏮 secreta durante una guerra imperial contra Espa鎙. Al perseguir a un gale鏮 espa隳l cargado de tesoros, conocido como "el premio de todo el oc嶧no", el Wager naufrag?en una isla desierta frente a la costa de la Patagonia. Despu廥 de pasar meses abandonados y enfrentar la inanici鏮, construyeron la endeble embarcaci鏮 y navegaron durante m嫳 de cien d燰s, atravesando 2 500 millas de mares tempestuosos. Los recibieron como h廨oes.

Pero entonces... seis meses despu廥, otra barca, todav燰 m嫳 decr廧ita, lleg?a la costa de Chile. Este bote solo conten燰 tres n嫠fragos, y ellos contaban una historia muy distinta. Los treinta marinos que llegaron a Brasil no eran h廨oes... sino amotinados. El primer grupo respondi?contraatacando a su manera al capit嫕 tir嫕ico y homicida, y a sus secuaces. Qued?claro que, mientras estuvieron varados en la isla, la tripulaci鏮 hab燰 ca獮o en la anarqu燰, con facciones beligerantes peleando por el dominio de esa tierra inh鏀pita. Mientras volaban acusaciones de traici鏮 y asesinato, el almirantazgo convoc?a una corte marcial para determinar qui幯 dec燰 la verdad. Lo que estaba en juego era la vida: a quien la corte encontrara culpable pod燰 acabar en la horca.

Los n嫠fragos del Wager es una grandiosa historia del comportamiento humano llevado al extremo, contada por uno de nuestros mejores escritores de no ficci鏮. La recreaci鏮 de Grann del mundo oculto en el interior de un barco de guerra brit嫕ico rivaliza con la obra de Patrick O'Brien; su retrato de los desesperados apuros de los n嫠fragos hace frente a narrativas de supervivencia como el Endurance, y su recuento de la corte marcial muestra la destreza de un thriller de Scott Turow. Como siempre sucede con el trabajo de Grann, los incre燢les giros en la narrativa mantienen bajo hechizo al lector. Y lo m嫳 poderoso de todo, desentierra el significado m嫳 profundo de los eventos, mostrando que no solo estaban en juicio el capit嫕 del Wager y su tripulaci鏮... sino la propia idea de imperio.