Thorkild Hansen was an early proponent and master of documentary fiction; his major works published in the 1960s became best-sellers in his native Denmark and were extremely popular throughout Scandinavia. Focusing on obscure figures and forgotten episodes in Denmark's past, he wrote engaging historical accounts of the Danish expedition to Arabia in 1761-1767 and of a seventeenth-century Danish voyage to discover a Northwest Passage from Europe to Asia. His magnum opus is a trilogy of works on the Danish slave trade. Like the earlier author Johannes V. Jensen, Hansen is one of the great travelers in modern Danish letters; his works reach back into history and out into the far corners of the globe. His technique--involving extensive research into authentic documents and expeditions to the historical loci--was highly innovative in his day. Hansen deliberately walked a tightrope between fact and fiction, demonstrating his great skill as a novelist...