Kings of Their Own Ocean by Karen Pinchin

How our insatiable appetite for tuna transformed a cottage industry into a global force (with a billion-dollar black market) and the dangerous effects of that shift for our planet, told through the lives of one fish and her fisherman.

In 2004, a young, 642-pound bluefin tuna is caught, tagged by a prickly and iconoclastic New England fisherman, Al Anderson—and then is released. Fourteen years later, the fish’s life ends in Portugal, her destiny to be served on sushi platters in a high-end Madrid restaurant. But thanks to Al’s tag, the tuna’s remarkable story can be told, and, in honour of her cross-Atlantic journey, she will be given a name: Amelia.

In the tradition of Mark Kurlansky and Susan Orlean, Karen Pinchin weaves a tale with elements of true crime, biography, investigative reporting, activism, ecology, business, and food culture. Spanning the early 1950s to the present, beginning with the rise in demand for Atlantic bluefin tuna in the northeastern United States, the narrative will establish the origins of tuna research and science, as well as the Atlantic fishing industry and its larger-than-life personalities.

Expertly researched and cinematically written, Kings of Their Own Ocean makes the case that it’s not too late to preserve the beauty and abundance of our oceans, but we must act now.

Story Locale: New England; The Atlantic Ocean; Gloucester; Halifax; Madrid; Portugal

KAREN PINCHIN is a veteran journalist and trained culinary school graduate. Most recently, she was the Tow Fellow at PBS FRONTLINE. In 2019, she graduated from Columbia’s Journalism School with a Master of Arts in science journalism, and won the school’s Lynton Fellowship for Book Writing. Her work has appeared in Huffington Post, The Globe and Mail, National Geographic, Modern Farmer, Newsweek International, and The DEEP, among others. She lives (and fishes) in Halifax, Nova Scotia with her husband and son.

Author Residence: Halifax, NS

Author Hometown: Toronto, ON