Book Translations | The Greenland Missing Persons’ stories

Traduções Literárias | As histórias das Pessoas Desaparecidas da Gronelândia

Finding a missing person is challenging in any part of the world, but in Greenland it gets even harder due to the weather conditions and the harsh terrain. After living seven years in Greenland, Christoffer Petersen is now writing fictional stories about the country and, in this series, he mixes specific cultural beliefs and practical police procedures to make the reader guess about what is going to happen next in the story and how Petra Jensen is going to solve the puzzle. Now, also in Portuguese.

Encontrar uma pessoa desaparecida é desafiante em qualquer parte do mundo, mas na Gronelândia é ainda mais difícil devido às condições climatéricas e ao terreno inóspito. Depois de viver sete anos na Gronelândia, Christoffer Petersen escreve histórias ficcionais sobre o país e, nesta série, mistura crenças culturais específicas com procedimentos policiais práticos para deixar o leitor sem saber o que vai acontecer a seguir e nem como Petra Jensen irá resolver o enigma. Agora, também em português.

LIVRO 1: “O Rapaz com o Dente de Narval” [BOOK 1: “The Boy with the Narwhal Tooth”]

A boy is missing and it is up to Petra Jensen to find him. She has just finished academy and her dream career is nothing like she thought it would be… until she answered that phone call. When she flies north to talk to the man on the phone she thinks she will be back on the same day… but no. She meets intriguing people who tell her stories that take her on a journey that could change her life. Desapareceu um menino e cabe a Petra Jensen encontrá-lo. Ela acabou de terminar a academia e a carreira de sonho dela não é nada do que pensava que iria ser… até atender aquela chamada telefónica. Quando viaja para o norte para falar com o homem que lhe ligou, pensava que regressaria no mesmo dia… mas não. Ela conhece pessoas intrigantes que lhe contam histórias que a levam numa viagem que pode mudar-lhe a vida.

Disponível em: [Available in]

BARNES & NOBLE: eBook
BOOKSHOP: eBook
KOBO: eBook

LIVRO 2: “A Rapariga que Falava como um Corvo” [BOOK 2: “The Girl with the Raven Tongue”]

A girl is missing, but not even the military air planes are able to find her. Due to a random encounter, Petra finds that the girl in question is very special and she has a special connection with the ravens… with tragic consequences. Petra is put on the case as a last resource. Uma menina está desaparecida, mas nem mesmo os aviões militares conseguem encontrá-la. Por causa de um encontro fortuito, Petra descobre que a menina em questão é muito especial e que tem uma ligação especial com os corvos… com consequências trágicas. Petra fica encarregue do caso como último recurso.

Disponível em: [Available in]

BARNES & NOBLE: eBook
BOOKSHOP: eBook
KOBO: eBook

LIVRO 3: “O Arrepio no Ártico” [BOOK 3: “The Shiver in the Arctic”]

Petra is trapped in a remote location due to a huge storm and a group of Americans are the only people at the hotel besides her. They are there because they want to find out what happened with a friend of theirs who got missing on a night like that. Petra isn’t sure if she should help them with the “investigation”, but she turns it into a little game to pass the time… until everything gets too real. Petra está restida num local remoto por causa de uma enorme tempestade e um grupo de americanos são os únicos no hotel para além dela. Eles estão lá porque querem saber o que aconteceu com um amigo deles que desapareceu numa noite como aquela. Petra não tem a certeza se deveria ajudá-los com a “investigação”, mas torna-a numa espécie de jogo para passar o tempo… até que tudo se torna bastante real.

Disponível em: [Available in]

BARNES & NOBLE: eBook
BOOKSHOP: eBook
KOBO: eBook

“Piteraq” – the novella set in Greenland now translated into Portuguese

English version
Nuno Rogeiro is a well-known TV commentator and political analyst who recommends books and cultural events every week. On 1 February 2026, he recommended the book “Piteraq”, by Christoffer Petersen, saying that it wasn’t “translated into Portuguese yet”. Well, now it is.

“Piteraq” tells the story of Mikael Gregersen and his partner when, during a particular tough Sirius patrol, they were caught by a piteraq. Sirius is a Danish special military unit, whose mission is to patrol the Northeast of Greenland, and a piteraq is a very nasty snow storm. During his first year, in that specific patrol, everything that could go wrong did go horribly wrong. Death was looming, but Mikael was willing to fight until his final breath. One by one, he managed to overcome every obstacle… but could he overcome the final one?

This story took place before The Greenland Trilogy, where we meet Fenna Brongaard, the first woman to work with Sirius and partner of Mikael Gregersen during his second year.

Versão Portuguesa
Nuno Rogeiro é um reconhecido comentador e analista político que recomenda livros e eventos culturais todas as semanas. A 1 de fevereiro de 2026, recomendou o livro “Piteraq”, de Christoffer Petersen, dizendo que “ainda não estava traduzido”. Bem, agora já está.

“Piteraq” conta a história de Mikael Gregersen e o seu parceiro quando, durante uma patrulha da Sirius particularmente difícil, foram apanhados por uma piteraq. A Sirius é uma unidade militar especial dinamarquesa, cuja missão é patrulhar o Nordeste da Gronelândia, e uma piteraq é uma tempestade de neve muito violenta. No seu primeiro ano, nessa patrulha específica, tudo o que podia correr mal correu horrivelmente mal, deveras. A morte pairava no ar, mas Mikael estava disposto a lutar até ao seu último suspiro. Um por um, conseguiu superar todos os obstáculos… mas conseguirá superar o último?

Esta história aconteceu antes da Trilogia da Gronelândia, onde conhecemos Fenna Brongaard, a primeira mulher a trabalhar na Sirius e parceira de Mikael Gregersen no seu segundo ano.

TRADUÇÃO para português disponível em:
BARNES AND NOBLE: ebook
BOOKSHOP: ebook
KOBO: ebook
Quem mora na Austrália e no Reino Unido também pode procurar na app BorrowBox

Keyword: ANTARCTICA | Words about frozen deserts

Photo by Kate Kloza (Australian Antarctic Division)

Antarctica actually means “not Arctic”. Not very original, true, but its designated name was already taken by the time this land was finally discovered. Terra Australis Incognita was a Latin expression literally meaning “Unknown South Land”. Since ancient times, it was believed that there was a land at the southernmost tip of the planet, but no one knew where it might be. During the colonial process, what is now Australia was first “discovered” by the Dutch, who named it as New Holland. Then came the British and they assumed this was the “unknown south land” our distant ancestors were looking for and, at the beginning of the 17th century, not long before the discovery of Antarctica, the English explorer Matthew Flinders thought “Terra Australis” was too long and that “Australia” sounded better. Australia is also known as “down under”, which conveys this idea of that land at the bottom of the planet.

So, when the true “terra australis” was found, they had to come up with a different name. “Arctic” comes from the Greek word arktikos, a reference to arktos, which means “bear”. In the old days (and even today, for those who are willing to skip GPS), people were guided by Polaris (the North Star), which indicates North for those located in the North Hemisphere. Polaris is a star right above the North Pole and, because of that, barely moves in the night sky. To find Polaris, one would only have to identify the constellation Ursa Minor (literally meaning Little Bear) and follow its tail. Therefore, as the Arctic was up in the north, near Polaris, then it was the land near the bear. The fact that the Arctic has polar bears, while Antarctica does not, may or may not be a coincidence.

Partly inside the Arctic Circle, there is Greenland, a huge island permanently covered by ice and with no trees. So, why is it called a land of green? Because it was, thousands of years ago, when the Vikings disembarked there. However, its true name is actually Kalaallit Nunaat, which means “the land of the Kalaallit”. The Kalaallit are the native Indigenous people of “Greenland”. They are Inuit, which means “people” (please note that “Eskimo” is a term European people used to use that is nowadays considered highly offensive). There are different tribes of Inuit. The Kalaallit are the ones from Greenland, or better yet Kalaallit Nunaat. There are also Inuit in Northern Canada and in Alaska. By the way, “Alaska” comes from the Aleut word alaxsxaq, which means “the object towards which the action of the sea is directed”. The Aleut are the Inuit of Alaska.

In the Arctic and in Antarctica there are no Indigenous people, but there are plenty of unique animals. Polar bears can only be found in the Arctic regions and penguins can only be found in cold regions in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. “Penguin” is a curious word… It comes from the Welsh words pen gwyn, meaning “head white”. In reality, it meant “great auk”, “auk” being a bird similar to the current penguins, but not related. Auks have become extinct in the 19th century. Back in the Arctic, narwhals are a type of whales perfectly adapted to these icy waters. Their name comes from Old Norse nāhvalr, a composition of the words nār and hvalr. This last word means “whale”, the first means “corpse” … but in the sense of having a colour similar to the one a corpse has. Another Arctic whale that was named according to its colour is the beluga. “Beluga” comes from the Russian word belyĭ, which means “white”.

Many other animals have adapted themselves to the extreme cold of the Poles. However, Antarctica, like Kalaallit Nunaat, was once green and warmer. In a continent roughly the size of Europe and Australia combined, there are high mountains like the Alps, glacier-carved valleys, flat plains and even an ocean. Researchers have recently succeeded in starting to figure all this out using technology (read the article “Landscape beneath Antarctica’s icy surface revealed in unprecedented detail”, from the link below). The problem for these researchers is that Antarctica’s landscape is covered by a thick ice sheet, just like Greenland. Ice sheets are similar to glaciers, but the former have a much greater extension. They consist of layers of snow that have not melted. Each layer of snow is compressed by the layers above and turns into a kind of ice-rock. As the snow keeps being added above, the snow-turned-ice-rock below moves slightly and very slowly. That is why glaciers carve valleys and ice sheets find their way to the ocean. Those high ice walls, typical images of Antarctica, are the edge of the ice sheet.

Researchers are studying ice sheets to understand how Antarctica is formed and how it will react to climate change. Essential for them are ships. Yet, these ships are not ordinary ships. They are icebreakers. Icebreaker ships are more resistant than a normal ship and have a special design in order to be able to cut the ice. Without this capacity, the ship may get trapped in the ice. That was what happened to Endurance, the famous ship of Captain Shackleton. Another famous Polar explorer ship is Fram. Fram went both to the Arctic and the Antarctica at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century and “lived” to tell the tale. This ship is now “parked” inside a museum, where we can get in and have an idea what it was like to travel inside it. Around it, there is plenty of information about its missions and about other missions during that time.

In the nutshell, there is a lot to discover about Antarctica, about the Arctic, and about Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland).

Sources / more information:

Check the ongoing research:

This article is part of the WORD CHRONICLES series
Word Chronicles are articles where the meaning of words, concepts, and perceptions are discussed.

Extra: Fiction books set in Greenland (translated into Portuguese)

English version

Never has so much been heard about Greenland as these days. First “visited” by the Vikings in the 10th century, it has been colonized by the Kingdom of Denmark since the 18th century. The relationship between the Inuit (the native people of Greenland) and the Danish government has not been a peaceful one. As it happened in other colonies, the Greenland true natives were brutalised and discriminated against (they still are). They have longed for a very long time to be completely independent, but the situation just got increasingly complicated with the declared intentions of the President of the USA.

Christoffer Petersen is a British fiction author who lived in Greenland for seven years. Teaching English to people living in remote areas and in the country’s capital, he had extensively contact with the Inuit. He has learned about their problems with Denmark and the consequences of its disastrous ruling. Having moved to Denmark, he now spends his time writing fictional stories about that frozen world. Some of those books are translated into Portuguese.

Portuguese version

Nunca se falou tanto sobre a Gronelândia como nestes dias. Visitada pela primeira vez pelos Vikings no século X, foi colonizada pelo Reino da Dinamarca a partir do século XVIII. O relacionamento entre os Inuit (o povo nativo da Gronelândia) e o governo dinamarquês não tem sido pacífico. Tal como aconteceu noutras colónias, os verdadeiros nativos gronelandeses foram brutalizados e discriminados (ainda o são). Há muito que anseiam pela independência toral, mas a situação está cada vez mais complicada com as intenções declaradas do Presidente dos EUA.

Christoffer Petersen é um autor de livros de ficção que viveu na Gronelândia durante sete anos. Ao ensinar inglês para as pessoas que viviam em áreas remotas e na capital do país, teve bastante contacto com os Inuit. Tomou conhecimento sobre os problemas com a Dinamarca e as consequências do seu governo desastroso. Tendo-se mudado para a Dinamarca, agora passa o tempo a escrever histórias ficcionadas sobre esse mundo gelado. Alguns destes livros estão traduzidos em Português.

The Greenland Trilogy | A Trilogia da Gronelândia

When Fenna Brongaard started her job with the SIRIUS patrol, she thought her biggest challenge was the ice storms along the patrol route through the Greenland desert. She was wrong. From her secret mission in Book 1, her short career as a secret agent in Book 2, to her personal self-imposed assignment in Book 3, she lives many dangerous adventures. A fast-paced thriller that surprises at every step of the way. In the meantime, she also meets David Maratse, a Greenland Police Constable and the main character of the Greenland Crime series.

Quando Fenna Brongaard começou a trabalhar na patrulha SIRIUS, pensou que o maior desafio seriam as tempestades de gelo ao longo da rota através do deserto da Gronelândia. Estava errada. Desde a missão secreta no Livro 1, passando pela curta carreira como agente secreta no Livro 2, até ao autoimposto dever no Livro 3, ela vive muitas aventuras perigosas. Uma história de ação alucinante que surpreende a cada passo. Entretanto, ela conhece David Maratse, um polícia gronelandês e a personagem principal da série Crimes na Gronelândia.

BOOK 1: “The Ice Star”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “A Estrela do Gelo”

BOOK 2: “In the Shadow of the Mountain”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “À Sombra da Montanha”

BOOK 3: “The Shaman’s House”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “A Casa do Xamã”

FENNA SHORT STORIES

After the events that unfolded in the previous books, Fenna is recruited by a secret services agency and is assigned several missions. Some of these missions are told is the following books.

Depois dos acontecimentos dos livros anteriores, Fenna é recrutada por uma agência de serviços secretos e é destacada para várias missões. Algumas dessas missões são contadas nos livros seguintes.

BOOK 1: “In Strange Hands and The Frenchman”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “Em Mãos Alheias e O Francês”

BOOK 2: “At All Costs”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “A Qualquer Preço”

Greenland Crime | Crimes na Gronelândia

Due to the events that took place in The Greenland Trilogy, David Maratse, a Greenland Police Constable, is forced into an early retirement. He decides to move to Inussuk, situated on the coast, on the other side of the country, to hunt and to fish. Well, that was the plan. The plan changes in Book 1 when Maratse finds a dead body, murdered. Against his will, he gets involved in the police investigation. In Book 2, he finds an abandoned boat, full of blood… In the meantime, he falls in love with Petra Jensen, a Greenland Police Sargent and the main character of the Greenland Missing Persons series. Yet, Petra disappears in Book 3 and, because of what he does for her, Maratse goes to jail in Book 4.

Devido aos acontecimentos que tiveram lugar n’A Trilogia da Gronelândia, David Maratse, um polícia gronelandês, é obrigado a reformar-se mais cedo. Decide mudar-se para Inussuk, situado na costa, no outro lado do país, para se dedicar à caça e à pesca. Bem, esse era o plano. O plano muda no Livro 1 quando Maratse encontra uma pessoa morta, assassinada. Contra a sua vontade, participa na investigação policial. No Livro 2, encontra um barco abandonado, cheio de sangue… Entretanto, apaixona-se por Petra Jensen, uma sargento da polícia gronelandesa e a personagem principal na série Pessoas Desaparecidas da Gronelândia. Porém, Petra desaparece no Livro 3 e, por causa do que ele faz por ela, Maratse vai parar à prisão no Livro 4.

BOOK 3: “We Shall Be Monsters”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “Seremos Monstros”

BOOK 4: “Inside the Bear’s Cage”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “Na Jaula do Urso”

Greenland Mission Persons | Pessoas Desaparecidas da Gronelândia

When Petra Jensen graduated from Police Academy, there was no Missing Persons desk. Then, Petra answered a phone call. After solving her first case, she was rewarded with her own section. However, she is still a rookie constable, therefore, she still has to do basic work. These are Petra’s stories before she met David Maratse and “be part” of the Greenland Crime series.

Quando Petra Jensen terminou o curso na Academia da Polícia não havia um gabinete de Pessoas Desaparecidas. Um dia, Petra atendeu um telefonema. Depois de resolver o primeiro caso, foi recompensada com a sua própria secção. No entanto, ela é uma novata, portanto, ainda precisa de fazer trabalho de base. Estas são as histórias de Petra antes de conhecer David Maratse e “fazer parte” da série Crimes na Gronelândia.

BOOK 1: “The Boy with the Narwhal Tooth”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “O Rapaz com o Dente de Narval”

BOOK 2: “The Girl with the Raven Tongue”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “A Rapariga que Falava como um Corvo”

BOOK 3: “The Shiver in the Arctic”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “O Arrepio no Ártico”

Suggestions for Portuguese readers – Part II

Portuguese version

A criadora do site “Words in Ideas” é, na verdade, uma tradutora, especializada em tradução literária. Atualmente, é a tradutora de português de Christoffer Petersen, um autor britânico independente com ligações dinamarquesas. Inspirado no tempo que viveu na Gronelândia, escreve policiais e histórias de ação passadas nessa ilha gelada.

English version

The founder of the website “Words in Ideas” is actually a translator, specialized in literary translation. Currently, she is the Portuguese translator of Christoffer Petersen, a British independent author with Danish connections. Inspired by the time he lived in Greenland, he writes crime stories and thrillers taking place on that iced island.

The Greenland Trilogy | A Trilogia da Gronelândia

BOOK 1: “The Ice Star”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “A Estrela do Gelo”

BOOK 2: “In the Shadow of the Mountain”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “À Sombra da Montanha”

BOOK 3: “The Shaman’s House”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “A Casa do Xamã”

FENNA SHORT STORIES

After the events that unfolded in the previous books, Fenna is recruited by a secret services agency and is assigned several missions. Some of these missions are told is the following books.

BOOK 1: “In Strange Hands and The Frenchman”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “Em Mãos Alheias e O Francês”

BOOK 2: “At All Costs”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “A Qualquer Preço”

Greenland Crime | Crimes na Gronelândia

BOOK 3: “We Shall Be Monsters”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “Seremos Monstros”

BOOK 4: “Inside the Bear’s Cage”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “Na Jaula do Urso”

Greenland Mission Persons | Pessoas Desaparecidas da Gronelândia

BOOK 1: “The Boy with the Narwhal Tooth”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “O Rapaz com o Dente de Narval”

BOOK 2: “The Girl with the Raven Tongue”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “A Rapariga que Falava como um Corvo”

BOOK 3: “The Shiver in the Arctic”
TRADUÇÃO para português: “O Arrepio no Ártico”