The Gospel of the Eels

An account of the mysterious origins of eels, intertwined with the author’s memories of fishing for them with his father.

The origins of where eels come from, how they get to where they live and why they decide to leave again has been the subject of much speculation as far back as Aristotle, and even now remains a ‘best guess’. We know where they breed, in the Sargasso sea, and yet no one has ever spotted a fully grown eel there. They travel literally across the world and back, for reasons unknown.

The Gospel of the Eels provides a riveting (no sarcasm!) story of the many facets of the fish. Nothing is ever as it seems with an eel, and as we dive deeper into the details and things with know about them, the full picture of their behaviour seems to become less and less clear.

Svensson weaves in his memoirs to the book expertly, showing us how eels often reflect our own nature without ever stretching too far to make his point.

A heartfelt and sometimes poetic work that is far greater than the sum of its parts.