A Woman in the Polar Night

This lesser known memoir in translation is one of MMD team member Chelsey's favorites. Now that it's back in print from Pushkin Press, she widely recommends it every winter. In 1933, Christiane Ritter, an Austrian painter, arrived on the arctic island of Spitsbergen to live with her hunter husband in a tiny little hut. In her vividly detailed diary entries, she used her artistic eye to paint a picture of the barren landscape, its wonders, and its dangers. Introspective yet expansive, this memoir is one of very few 20th century accounts of the arctic tundra by a woman.