Sara Wheeler

The greatest survival story

A.R Azzam describes how a grotesquely mutilated Portuguese soldier was marooned for decades on St Helena in the 16th century

issue 24 June 2017

This is the story of a 16th-century Portuguese knight and mariner who survived alone on a lump of volcanic rock in the South Atlantic for 26 years. The island was St Helena, and Fernão Lopes is the ‘other exile’ of the book’s title, in contrast to Napoleon, who pitched up 300 years later.

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