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Get Your Read On: The Indian & Angels of the Universe
Each issue, we take a look at two Icelandic titles old and new, available in English translation at most Reykjavík bookstores. If you’d like more ideas, or to read more on Icelandic literature, head over to gpv.is/lit for in-depth author interviews, guides,…
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But Were You Not Amazed?
When I was handed ‘The Summerland: The Deceased Describe Their Passing and Reunion in The Other World’ to review, I thought it was a joke (hahaha, give the new guy this ancient book to review, hahaha). The cover design looks like it…
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Review: ‘Scarcity In Excess: The Built Environment And The Economic Crisis In Iceland’
Ever since the year 2008, the word “kreppa” (crisis) has been among the most-used by Icelanders, a part of daily parlance and the subject of many a publication, dissertation and research venture. The little island suddenly had the world’s spotlight, and not…
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Book Review: ‘North’, by Chef Gunnar Karl Gíslason & Jody Eddy
When I was in high school, a group of us went on an ice fishing trip at our friend’s family cabin. It had the usual itinerary of binge drinking, homoeroticism, and deep discussions on the meaning of life and the beauty of…
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Silent No More
Gerður Krístný is an immensely prolific writer, having produced some 18 books—including poetry and short story collections, novels for adults and children, a biography and a travel narrative—since her first publication in 1994. However, she is as of yet relatively unknown to…
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A False Version Of The Truth
When we meet Einar, a seasoned Reykjavík crime reporter, at the opening of Árni Þórarinsson’s ‘Season of the Witch,’ he—much like the country around him—is in the midst of great change, and he’s not terribly happy about it. It’s the early 2000s,…
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Monster or Martyr
Based on the real story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, who in 1830 became the last person to be executed for a crime in Iceland, ‘Burial Rites,’ the debut novel by Australian author Hannah Kent, is the culmination of ten years’ of writing, research,…
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The Perfect Landscape
Art is a contested space in ‘The Perfect Landscape.’ Public sculptures are graffitied over, a bucket of red paint is sloshed on a museum wall, windows are smashed at an installation, and art experts x-ray and scrape at their gallery’s new marquee…
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Unraveled By Alda Sigmundsdóttir
‘Unraveled,’ the debut novel of seasoned journalist, translator, author, and blogger Alda Sigmundsdóttir, opens on the brink of calamity—the sort of world-changing upheaval whose warning signs, in retrospect, seem so obvious, but which completely elude those involved until it’s much too late.…
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“Nobody Gets Out Of Iceland Alive”
Edward Weinman spent eight years as a freelance journalist in Iceland, or rather, he “endur[ed] many long, dark, cold, windy, grey winters” during which he “suffered only one nervous breakdown.” It is apparently lucky that he escaped the country when he did…