Cowboys at Sea

Petr Kos makes his debut with a book he spent a long fifteen years gathering material for. But as he says, everything has its right time. First, it was necessary to live a piece of an adventurous life before he could start writing about it. And that's probably why his book feels like a revelation. It was partly created on board the Anna of Tromso. He single-handedly saved her from the fate of other old ships that will never return to the sea. But the depths of this book are much, much deeper. Notes capturing the rescue of Anna and travelogue sketches of voyages along the Norwegian coast intertwine with memories of the time the author spent among fishermen in Alaska. Ancient stories of the sea, of ships, of manly will emerge to the surface – to keep on living your life, even when it's not worth much, when it's at its hardest, or when it's beginning in the 1950s in communist Czechoslovakia. These are stories that are told only rarely, and only to those who deserve it. This book smells of tar, sweat, salt, and fish, but above all, of a sincerity that is rare today. “There are people who dream of adventure – and then there are pure-blooded adventurers. Petr Kos is one of those who are not afraid to raise anchor and set off into the unknown.”