Setting

“The Shell Collector” is set on the northern shore of Kenya, near the island of Lamu. This setting provides a perfect location for a reclusive shell collector. So remote from western lifestyle, this world offers natural riches to a man who has an endless enthusiasm for sea life and who has recoiled, for whatever reasons, from the academic and urban life he led during his middle years. Nature in this area is not compromised by modern technology, except for the motorboats that threaten the coral reefs, nor is the area much able to benefit from current medical research for people who contract malaria or are otherwise injured by contact with natural phenomena, such as fire coral. Such a place provides a plethora of marine life, shows how people live with nature and are subject to it, and offers a setting in which there is a high...