By Diego Amaro
It is often said that one does not live on his own, but that he is part of a grander story that begins with his ancestors and continues with his offspring. For readers living in the present time, it seems that everything that occurs within their control is made possible only because they determine its outcome, yet certain realities happen because not only God wills it, but He alone determines its result based on how his agents correspond with this Divine plan. For most people, it is the day when they decided to go to college, get married, or pursue the career of their dreams. For others, that extends to greater events like settling in a foreign land and forsaking one’s attachment to his native country to establish a home for one’s future generations. Such is the story which Swedish auteur Jan Torell tells in his sprawling saga of immigration, The Emigrants and its sequel, The New Land.
