Malva is the princess of Galnicia, destined to marry the Prince of Andemark. Or so her parents think. On the eve of her wedding, she escapes at dead of night from under her parents' noses, little realising that she is letting herself in for a life of peril and adventure, including being shipwrecked in a huge storm and being captured as part of a harem. Hugely visual, the book tells of the wonder of frozen steppes and oriental palaces, of sailing ships and treasure islands. This is a book of drama, magic and excitement, where challenges have to be overcome, friendships cemented, and hearts broken.A note from the author: 'When I was ten, I devoured stories about explorers. I asked my parents for a world map, and hung it above my bed. On it, in pencil, I traced the itineraries of Marco Polo, Phileas Fogg , Ulysses, Magellan and Michael Strogoff. Real or make-believe, these characters fascinated me, and I swore that one day too I would cicumnavigate the world. "The Princess and the Captain" is an idea that grew slowly, over four years. I wanted to create an imaginary world, similar to our own, set in the Age of Discovery. A mirror world, if you like, full of mysterious, unexplored territories, which could reflect the fears and hopes of men. I wanted love, hatred, danger, and, in the eye of the storm, real flesh and blood characters pursuing their own dreams, their own El Dorado Malva and Orfeus have travelled with me a long way. It's time to let them go now, to sail towards new readers.'

 

There are 448 pages in this book. This book was published 2006 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC .

Anthea Bellwas awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize (USA) in 2002 for her translation of W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz . Her many works of translation from French and German (for which she has received several other awards) include the Nicholas books and, with Derek Hockridge, the entire Asterix the Gaul saga by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. Anne-Laure Bondoux is a well-known French writer. She has written several novels for young adults in several genres and received many literary awards and prizes in her native France. Abderraouf Habbachi is a first time French/Arabic literary translator with a rare eye for rendering complex prose.