South Wind is the most famous book of the English writer Norman Douglas (1868–1952), which has survived more than two dozen reprints in its homeland and translated into many languages. The novel takes place on the fictional island of Nepent, whose name means a medicine that relieves pain and suffering or “bliss”, but it is here that the heroes will face difficult trials......

The fame of Douglas was brought by the satirical novel South Wind (1917), whose theme was suggested to the author by Joseph Conrad and who was highly appreciated, among others, by Vladimir Nabokov. Graham Greene wrote that his generation grew up on South Wind, but Douglas himself placed his book of notes on travels in Greece, Austria, Italy, North Africa, India and others above all, which, among other things, opened the Italian South to several generations of Englishmen....