The latest addition to my website Guðbergur Bergsson‘s Missir [Loss]. This is a thoroughly gloomy novel about ageing (Bergsson was seventy-eight when it was published in Iceland), loss of a spouse and waiting for the kettle to boil. The unnamed hero (the book is told in both the first and third person) is an elderly … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Halldór Laxness‘s Paradísarheimt (Paradise Reclaimed). This is one of his later novels, written five years after he won the Nobel Prize and written in somewhat of a different style, not least because a significant amount is set in the United States, specifically in Salt Lake City. It tells … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Guðbergur Bergsson‘s Svanurinn (The Swan), the only one of Bergsson’s novels to be translated into English, though several have been translated into other languages. This one is a strange story about a nine-year old girl who has been caught shoplifting and sent to work on a remote farm … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Steinunn Sigurðardóttir‘s Góði Elskhuginn [The Good Lover]. This is another excellent novel by Sigurðardóttir about the problems of love. Karl Ástuson has spent much of his adult life outside Iceland, after the death of his beloved mother and the break-up of his relationship with Una. During that time, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Steinunn Sigurðardóttir‘s Tímaþjófurinn (The Thief of Time), the third Sigurðardóttir on the Iceland page of my website. This one is a sad love story. Alda Ivarsen is a thirty-seven year old teacher of English and German. She has had a succession of love affairs, which she usually controls. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ragna Sigurðardóttir‘s Hið fullkomna landslag (The Perfect Landscape), the second Sigurðardóttir on the Iceland page of my website. I have always had a penchant for books about art forgery and this is one of the topics of this book. Hanna, an Icelandic art expert who has been working … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Fríða Á. Sigurðardóttir‘s Medan nóttin lídur (Night Watch). There seem to be several Icelandic writers with the patronymic Sigurðardóttir and Fríða will be the first of three that I shall be reviewing over the next few days. This is a really excellent novel, which tells of the three … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hallgrímur Helgason‘s 101 Reykjavík (101 Reykjavik). If your idea of an Icelandic novel is one about the hardships of farming and fishing communities or a tale of a quirky but lovable misfit in contemporary Iceland, this one will be a bit of a change. It tells the story … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Bergsveinn Birgisson‘s Svar við bréfi Helgu (Reply to a Letter from Helga). This novel take the form of a letter, written by Bjarni Gíslason, an Icelandic farmer, written to the love of his life in reply to a letter that she had written to him many years ago, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir‘s Rigning í nóvember (Butterflies in November), another quirky novel from this author. The unnamed narrator of this novel is a thirty-three old woman who works as a translator, proof-reader and editor (and occasionally supplies additional sexual services to her clients). Her marriage is falling apart … Read more