2. THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET BY DAVID MITCHELL “For white men to live is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more. Their appetites are astonishing! They own wardrobes, slaves, carriages, warehouses, and ships. They own ports, cities, plantations, valleys, mountains, chains of islands. They own the world, its jungles, its skies, and its seas. Yet they complain that Dejima is a prison. They complain they are not free.”