The Skeleton Ship

A fascinating work that intertwines history, myth, and literature around a haunting episode: the 1913 appearance of the Marlborough, a sailing ship that had vanished more than two decades earlier, drifting through the Strait of Magellan… crewed only by skeletons.
With a lyrical, erudite, and deeply evocative tone, Barrientos reconstructs this nautical legend through documents, chronicles, contradictory testimonies, and imagined accounts, blending the real with the fantastic. The narrative becomes a poetic meditation on oblivion, death, historical shipwrecks, and the ghosts that inhabit collective memory.
The author explores not only the story of the Marlborough, but also the tradition of ghost ships in world literature — from Poe to Coloane, from Coleridge to Lovecraft — weaving them together with reflections on ancient maps, maritime superstitions, and the mythical geography of the world’s southernmost frontiers.

Key points

• A prose that captivates readers of historical fiction, literary chronicles, and poetic essays.
• A tribute to maritime literature, the southern hemisphere, and stories that resist oblivion.
• It addresses universal themes such as death, memory, mystery, myth, and the human condition from an original and moving perspective.
• Ideal for readers interested in nautical legends, Patagonia, and fantasy literature with a real-world anchor.

Óscar Barrientos Bradasic

2018 – Pablo Neruda Foundation Award for Poetic Achievement
2015 – Julio Cortázar Ibero-American Award
2014 – Francisco Coloane National Narrative and Chronicle Award
2013 and 1997 – Fernando Santiván Municipal Award of Valdivia