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Pelsaert's Nightmare is a tale of afflicted witness, a story whose mainspring is the 1629 Batavia shipwreck and its infamous mutiny off the coast of what is now Western Australia. One year after this tumultuous event, Francisco Pelsaert, Batavia's merchant commander and a key player in the drama, lies dying in a mildewed room outside the walls of Batavia Castle (modern-day Jakarta). With only a servant-carer and the occasional visitor to relieve his solitude, he passes the hours in troubled reflection of events which have shaped his life.