Captive to the slave-trading colonists of Angola, young British seaman Andrew Battell longs for his home in the England of Elizabeth I, but increasingly finds himself enthralled by the occult arts of the Lord of Darkness.

"Considered Antonio Lobo Antunes's masterpiece, The land at the end of the world -- now in a new and fully restored translation by acclaimed translator Margaret Jull Costa -- recounts the anguished tale of a Portuguese medic haunted by memories of war, who, like the Ancient Mariner, will tell his tale to anyone who listens. In the tradition of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the twentieth century's most original literary voices has delivered a haunting and heartrending meditation on the absurdities of love and war"--Back cover