MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long
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Theodore Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa
The Raft of the Medusa
PAUL DONOVAN recommends three new books that explore the human relationship with nature
Doomed adolescents, when the missing person is you, classic whodunnit, and an anti-capitalist eco-thriller
WILL STONE takes a ticket to indie disco heaven, but misses the rarely performed tunes
Reviews of new releases by Jens Lekman, Big Thief, and Christian McBride Big Band
TOM PIERSCIONEK recommends a remarkable series of interviews with those few and brave Israeli citizens who refuse to do military service
ON JULY 2, 1816, the French navy frigate Meduse ran aground 100 miles off the coast of Mauretania in Africa due to the navigational incompetence of its master Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, a protege of the French foreign minister.
Some 147 people — for whom there was no room in the lifeboats — were put on an improvised raft to be towed. But, in a callous act of wilful and criminal negligence of duty, it was cut adrift on the orders of de Chaumareys.
Only 15 were to survive the two-week ordeal at sea before they were rescued. Immediately, stories of dehydration, starvation, brutality, murder and cannibalism emerged, when a report by the ship’s surgeon, Henri Savigny, was leaked to the newspaper Journal des Debats and published on September 13 1816.
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