David Grann

Stories of seafaring, shipwreck, mutiny and murder have long held a fascination, particularly for dwellers of this island nation and in his latest investigative piece of narrative non-fiction, David Grann has a tale that grips from first page to last. The Wager was a vessel shipwrecked in the 1740s, its crew presumed lost, until a group of survivors washed up on the coast of Brazil. Their story of survival would have been incredible enough except for a second group of survivors to appear in Chile with stories of mutiny, murder and even cannibalism. What follows is not so much a question of who is telling the truth, but of who gets to tell the story that will become the truth. A court martial of individuals but also the idea of Empire itself. We sat down to talk about the pursuit of truth, human survival and the power of stories to endure.