On the night of June 3, 1629, a ship called the “Batavia” – the pride of the Dutch East India Company – sank a short distance from Australia. Something unusual happened, and the crash near the coral archipelago was terrible. The captain and the representative of the shipping company sail in a lifeboat to the island of Java to seek help. The fate of the two hundred survivors is already sealed: a pharmacist wanted by the legal system, named Cornelius, becomes a cruel leader who imposes a reign of terror and violence on everyone. Adventures, wars, upheavals, real plots as surreal as rescue and murder, humor and horror, turn Simone Leys’ novella into a box of breathtaking surprises. Before us is an original and fresh way of telling a story. This is a text that is on the borderline between prose and list, between reality and fiction: have a nice sail!