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
Google informs me that today is the first day of spring so it is appropriate to continue my Icelandic novel fest with a book about plant growing. The latest addition to my website is Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir‘s Afleggjarinn (The Greenhouse). This is a gentle but quirky novel about a young Icelandic man who, since the … Read more
A while ago, I said I might, one day, read only books from one specific country for a few weeks. I have ruminated over this idea for a while and have now decided the time has come. The choice of country was not difficult. When I was browsing in Eymundson’s wonderful bookshop in Reykjavik, I … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kristmann Guðmundsson‘s Brudekjolen (The Bridal Gown), the first in my March-April Icelandic novel reading fest. I am starting with an early one. This was written in 1927, four years before Salka Valka (Salka Valka), the previous earliest Icelandic novel on my site. This one is a story of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s 友田と松永の話 [The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga]. The narrator, a well-known novelist, receives a letter from Shige Matsunaga, asking him to help locate her husband. They have been happily married, living in the country. However, after a few years of marriage, when she was pregnant, he … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hans Scherfig‘s Det forsømte forår (Stolen Spring), a book probably written before but published after Den forsvundne fuldmægtig (The Missing Bureaucrat) but which features some of the characters from that book. It is set primarily in a prestigious fee-paying school in Copenhagen, based on the school Scherfig attended … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hans Henny Jahnn‘s Epilog [Epilogue], the final part of his monumental and unfinished trilogy. This novel carries on from somewhat before the ending of the previous book. We see that Gemma is happily married to Egil Bohn, the horse dealer and they have four sons. The oldest, Nikolaj, … Read more