Iceland is an island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, with a population of about 342,000 and an area of 103,000 square kilometers, making it the most sparsely populated country in Europe. The capital and largest city is Reykjavík in the southwest of the country, which with its surrounding areas is home to over two-thirds of the population. Iceland is one of the most dynamic volcanic regions in the world. The interior consists of a plateau of lava fields, mountains, and glaciers. Iceland straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where
the activity of diverging tectonic plates brings heat and magma closer
to the surface - but this also means that the island holds enormous geothermal resources, enabling it to be world leader in the production of this
eco-friendly power. The negative side is that there are frequent earthquakes and that volcanoes do indeed erupt, like Eyjafjallajökull in 2010, which - although relatively small for a volcanic eruption - caused severe disruption to air travel. In the past, volcanic eruptions have also caused famine, such as the eruption of Laki in 1783.
Iceland's summers are chilly, although the subpolar climate is tempered by the warm Gulf Stream. The difference in daylight between summer and winter is stark: in winter the sun rises at lunchtime and so to speak again sets an hour later (this is the period in which the northern lights may be observed), while in May to July one can see the midnight sun (there are only a few hours of twilight in the height of summer until full daylight resumes once more).
The settlement of Iceland began in 874 CE when Norwegians emigrated to Iceland. The island was governed as an independent commonwealth under the Althing, the world's oldest functioning legislative assembly. Iceland came under Norwegian rule in the 13th century, and in 1397 was together with Norway integrated into a union with Sweden and Denmark, followed from 1523 by Danish solo rule. In 1550 Denmark introduced Lutheranism to the island, but overall Iceland remained a distant semi-colonial territory in which Danish institutions and infrastructures were conspicuous by their absence.
In the early 19th c. Iceland's struggle for self-rule took form and culminated in independence in 1918 and the founding of the republic in 1944 (thanks to the 1940 German occupation of Denmark). Although its parliament (Althing) was suspended from 1799 to 1845, the island republic has been credited with sustaining the world's oldest parliament. As Iceland was ruled by Denmark for 682 years, it still has a close and complex relationship with its former masters. For centuries Iceland's intellectual class was almost exclusively educated in Copenhagen. Even today, more Icelanders live in the Danish capital than in any other place outside the island. From the end of WWII to 2006 Iceland had other quasi-masters in the form of the US military who maintained a base here (set up under anti-Nato protests as reflected in The Atom Station by Halldór Laxness), but Iceland also benefited from the Marshall plan. Danish cultural influence has subsequently been supplanted by British and
American influence, and English now is the second language of
Icelanders.
Until the 20th century, Iceland relied largely on subsistence fishing and agriculture, but modernization following WWII brought prosperity and Iceland became one of the wealthiest and most developed nations in the world, with sectors as biotechnology and geothermal energy. It maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens. Iceland ranks high in economic, democratic, and social stability, as well as equality. In 2008, Iceland was hit hard by the worldwide financial crisis (due to economic mismanagement - Iceland's banks had gone on an investment spree in glittering foreign assets with borrowed money), leading to a systemic failure of its banking system and a deep economic crisis which left its traces in literature as well. Interestingly, when Iceland experienced its boom and bubble, explanations were found in the uniqueness of the Icelandic economy and culture - "a new model of doing things," similar to the type of explanations applied 20 years earlier in a similar situation to Japan. In retrospect, it was a clear demonstration of how strong social networks can turn to incestuous corruption and the shutting down of democratic discourse (such as a free press). But by 2014, the Icelandic economy already had made a significant recovery, in large part due to a surge in tourism.
Like other Nordic societies, Icelandic society is very egalitarian. Hierarchy is established for convenience, and superiors are accessible. Information is shared frequently and communication is informal and direct. Conflicts are resolved by compromise and negotiation. The focus is on well-being and quality of life, and status is not
emphasized. Genders are emphatically equal (in 1980, Iceland became the
first country in the world to have a female president). Iceland is also a highly individualist culture, which means that society is loosely-knit and that people are expected to look after themselves. Icelanders are not averse to taking risks and there is a large degree of acceptance for new ideas. In a negative way, this can lead to a Viking-like, dare-do attitude of winning by being clever and bold, and an in-bred sense of superiority, which contributed to the crash of 2008.
Icelandic food is natural and based on fresh seafood, lamb chops, delicious rye bread and dairy products (such as Skyr yogurt). However, there are also some (at least to me) truly weird dishes, as hákarl (fermented shark), hrútspungar (ram's testicles), blóðmör (blood pudding), svið (boiled sheep's head) and súr hvalur (whale blubber).
Most Icelanders are descendants of Norse and Gaelic settlers. Icelandic,
a Germanic language, is descended from Old Norse. Icelandic literature is known for the sagas written in medieval times, starting in the 13th century. The most famous of these include Njáls saga, about an epic blood feud, and Grænlendinga saga and Eiríks saga, describing the discovery and settlement of Greenland.
A translation of the Bible was published in the 16th century. Important compositions since the 15th to the 19th century include sacred verse and rímur, rhyming epic poems. In the 19th century, the development of new literary forms was stimulated by national-romantic ideas. In recent times, Iceland has produced many great writers, the best-known of whom is Halldór Laxness, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955 (the only Icelander to win a Nobel Prize thus far). Another important writer is Einar Már Guðmundsson. Nordic "noir" crime novels are a popular genre, with as most important author Arnaldur Indriðason. Icelanders are avid consumers of literature; for its size, Iceland imports and translates more international literature than any other nation.
With few exceptions in Iceland people do not have surnames, but
patronyms or occasionally matronyms. These consist of the first name of
the father (or mother) followed by -son ("son") or -dóttir ("daughter").
But these function differently from surnames and Icelanders therefore
formally address each other by their first names (this is not a matter
of Icelandic equality!) and listings such as the telephone directory are
alphabetized by first name rather than surname. So the writer Arnaldur
Indriðason is both casually and formally called "Arnaldur" and in
bookshops his books are ranked under the A for "Arnaldur" and not under
"Indriðason" (as happens with the translations of his books outside
Iceland; on the English translations of his books, "Indriðason" is misleadingly printed in larger letters).
The big themes of the Icelandic novel are:
- Rugged independence
- Iceland's mesmerizing landscape
- A typical kind of humor
- Icelandic noir, helped in atmosphere by the island's dark and inclement weather of rain and snow
- Because of the tiny population, everyone knows everyone else and the close-knit society allows for nepotism and cliques
The rules I have followed are:
(1) English translations must exist (it may be our of print, in which case you'll have to try the sellers at Amazon etc., or a good library)
(2) Every writer is represented by only one book (to prevent me from spamming the list with my favorites)
(3) One of the selection criteria is "sense of place," meaning that I have a preference for books that bring the reader closer to the country under consideration.
(4) Besides "high literature," I also include a few "genre novels" (usually thrillers or mysteries), as these can give a good insight in the culture of a particular country.
Useful websites:
Reikjavik, Unesco City of Literature: https://bokmenntaborgin.is/en
Reikjavik Grapevine: https://grapevine.is/
Iceland Review: https://www.icelandreview.com/
Iceland Monitor: https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/
Have a virtual trip by checking out the various places mentioned in these novels via Google Maps or Wikipedia!
1. Under the Glacier / Christianity at the Glacier (Kristnihald undir Jökli), by Halldór Laxness (1968)
Independent People is Laxness' most famous novel, a story about a stubborn and uncompromisingly independent sheep farmer, but I am not a fan of "regional novels" about agricultural pursuits, so I have opted for Under the Glacier, one of Laxness' latest, most quirky, and most philosophical books. The correct English translation of the title of this novel is "Christianity under the Glacier" and that glacier is Snæfellsjökull, a huge glacier capping a stratovolcano in western Iceland. The mountain is located at the most western part of the Snæfellsnes peninsula, at a distance of 120 kilometers from Reykjavík, and is sometimes visible from that city. It is one of the most famous mountains in Iceland, also thanks to the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) by Jules Verne, in which the protagonists find the entrance to a passage leading to the center of the earth on Snæfellsjökull.
In Laxness' novel the Bishop of Iceland sends an emissary (in the novel only called "Emissary of the Bishop" or "Embi") to that area to investigate what the eccentric local priest is up to. There are rumors that Pastor Jon is not burying the dead, that the church is boarded up, and that in general Christianity is being "tampered with." What the emissary (a young theology student) encounters is very different from such mundane concerns: he finds a true theater of the absurd. For example, one of the characters is a woman who may or may not have been killed, turned into a fish, frozen under the glacier, and then later defrosted and resurrected by a group of traveling American hippies! An utterly perplexing but also brilliantly funny book.
Halldór Laxness (1902-1998) was born in Reykjavik, but spent his youth in the countryside. His real name was Halldór Guðjónsson (with a patronymic) - Laxness is a writer's pseudonym that functions as a surname. From the age of seventeen on, he traveled and lived abroad, chiefly on the European continent. He was influenced by expressionism and other modern currents in Germany and France. In 1930, Laxness settled again in Iceland. In 1935 he published Independent People, the novel that was instrumental in the decision to grant him the Nobel Prize in Literature. Other important novels are Iceland's Bell (1943), a historical trilogy; the satirical The Atom Station (1948); and the Bildungsroman The Fish Can Sing (1957).
How Halldór Laxness Brings the Heroic to the Everyday
Laxness in Translation
2. Trolls' Cathedral (Tröllakirkja), by Ólafur Gunnarsson (1992)
In Scandinavian (and Icelandic) folklore, trolls are beings who live far from human habitation, are not Christianized, and are considered dangerous to human beings. Depending on the source, their appearance varies greatly; trolls may be ugly and slow-witted, or look and behave exactly like human beings, with no particularly grotesque characteristic about them. The troll in human form in this novel is the protagonist, the architect Sigurbjörn, who dreams of building a massive and imposing cathedral that echoes the Icelandic
landscape (as Hallgrímskirkja by architect Guðjón Samúelsson, built in
1937, in fact does) - but he is never asked for such a large, public project. His main project therefore becomes a franchise department store, a church of materialism, built in 1952, the year in which the novel takes place. Acquiring the land in Reykjavik from his father-in-law, he begins
construction in partnership with Gudbrandur, a master carpenter and
friend (who mostly finances the project). With its five floors of merchandise linked by escalators, the store is something which has never been seen yet in Iceland.
But Sigurbjörn is anyway a man who has lost his faith. His religious elder brother traveled abroad to study theology, but contracted a disease and died overseas. The brother remained a believer to the end, but Sigurbjörn looses faith in a cold-hearted god that allowed such a sincere and kind man as his brother to die. Sigurbjörn is confirmed in his rejection of god when his young son is raped and the rapist pardoned by the authorities after a very short stint in prison. Grief and anger make Sigurbjörn unable to forgive god or any fellow human being. He sees guilt everywhere and in everyone. His family disintegrates subsequent to the incident. Sigurbjörn looses his grip on sanity, kills his only friend instead of the rapist and ends up in jail. In this novel, the undercurrent of violence never fails to shock and
when it erupts, victims and perpetrators prove equally unpredictable. A
discomfiting read.
Ólafur Gunnarsson (1948) graduated from Commercial College of Iceland in 1968 and first worked as a medical emergency driver. Since 1974 he has been an independent writer and translator. His most famous novel is Trolls' Cathedral, which was nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize in 1992. Ólafur has been called one of Iceland's most important realist storytellers and his novels have been termed "urban epics." He lives and works on a small farm a few miles outside Reykjavík. Other novels are The Beautiful Flying Whale (a children's book), Potter’s Field and Million Percent Men.
3. Angels of the Universe (Englar alheimsins), by Einar Már Guðmundsson (1995)
Angels of the Universe is a Nordic Bildungsroman that is often described as the Icelandic version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The protagonist Páll, who increasingly suffers from a split
personality, anxiety, unrest and paranoia, was based on Einar's mentally ill brother and much of the book is true. The novel is poetic, but also filled with lots of (very) dark humor - all the more so as Páll himself is the narrator. The story can be divided into two parts. The first part is focused on the childhood and youth of Páll (who is born on the fateful day that
Iceland joins NATO) in Reykjavik and brings many colorful persons on
stage (don't worry when you can't remember them) - in this section we also get some insight into Icelandic culture. Páll is looking for an explanation why his life turned out as it
did – what was it that flung him into this
internal chaos? While longing for lost friends and childhood, slowly the
idea is born: is leaving childhood perhaps the same as losing your
mind? In the second part Páll walks Reykjavik's streets, out-of-work and aimless, tormented by bouts of drinking and ferocious tantrums, scaring his family, lusting after women,
and brooding over petty humiliations. Páll finally ends up in the mental hospital Klepp where
he meets several colorful characters, such as Óli, who believes he is
the songwriter for The Beatles, Peter who is waiting for his doctorate from Beijing University, and Viktor, who signs bills with the
signature of Adolf Hitler. The novel has won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 1995. In 2000, it was adapted into an eponymous feature film.
Einar Már Guðmundsson (1954) was born in Reykjavík. In 1979 he received his Bachelor of Arts in
comparative literature and history at the University of Iceland. He subsequently worked in the
comparative literature department of the University of Copenhagen.
The author lives in Reykjavík. His books have been translated into several languages (but more often into German than English). Other novels are for example The Knights of the Spiral Stairs and On the Point of Erupting. Angels of the Universe is available in a Kindle edition.
Confusion of the Dominant, article on Már Guðmundsson
4. Jar City (Mýrin, lit. The Bog), by ARNALDUR Indriðason (2000)
Inspector Erlendur is your archetypal Nordic noir police detective: while he searches for criminals, he must also face his own demons. He is about 50, long divorced, no contact anymore with his ex-wife and son, and with a daughter, Eva Lind, who suffers from varying degrees of drug addiction. In this novel, she is pregnant and still using; she flits in and out of Erlendur's life angrily, as if crying out for help. The weather in the novel is invariably cold, dark, and it either rains or snows (winter is Arnaldur's season, not summer).
The body of a 70-year-old man who was struck on the head with a glass ashtray is found in a flat in Norðurmýri. The only clues are a photograph of a young girl's grave and a cryptic note left on the body. Detective Erlendur discovers that the victim was accused of a violent rape some forty years earlier but was never convicted. The man indeed turns out to have been a nasty piece of work, and Erlendur is disgusted to discover that he and his mates may have been connected with more rapes and deaths of young women in the past. And then there is that suffocating, moldy smell in the man's apartment...
The novel won the Scandinavian crime writers' Glass Key award in 2002 for best Nordic crime fiction novel, and was adapted into an eponymous film. What I like in this novel (and other books by Arnaldur) is that the plot is neither too daring nor too unrealistic; the story spins a thread which connects sensitive matters: sexual crimes and the problem of the information society where the genetic ID of the individual has become the property of private firms.
Arnaldur Indriðason (1961) was born in Reykjavík, and graduated with a degree in history from the University of Iceland. Before becoming a full time novelist, he worked as a journalist and film critic for a large newspaper. His first book, Sons of Earth (Synir duftsins) came out in 1997, the first in the series with Detective Erlendur (the first two novels in the series have not yet been translated into English). The series now includes 14 novels. Arnaldur is considered one of the most popular writers in Iceland in recent years, crowning bestseller lists time and again. His books have sold over 14 million copies worldwide, in 40 languages. Two different series by Arnaldur are the "Reykjavik Wartime Mystery series" (in which the two detectives Flovent and Thorson investigate crime and espionage in Reykjavik during WWII), and the "Konráð series" (about a retired police officer).
Reykjavík by day and night, article about Arnaldur's novels.
Guide to Arnaldur at Mystery Tribune.
5. Pets (Gæludýrin), by Bragi Ólafsson (2001)
This book is about nasty people: people who don't leave you in peace (for example when you want to read your book in the airplane and the guy next to you keeps trying to engage you in conversation), or people who want something from you (money, or that even more precious phenomenon, time). And often, instead of getting angry and being nasty yourself, you endure such people out of a sort of lazy masochism (hoping they go away of their own accord). In the book, Emil has the above airplane experience when he returns from London to Reykjavik. But at home a much nastier experience lies in wait: Havard, a sinister lout from his past, shows up on his doorstep, and Emil does the only sensible thing he can think of: he hides under his bed. But Havard doesn't take no for an answer and breaks into Emil's house, where he makes himself comfortable by enjoying the large amount of liquor Emil has just brought back from London. He even ends up hosting a party for Emil's friends, while Emil in question remains in hiding. From his position under the bed he has to live through all the outrages that take place. A hilarious novel with a dark undertone.
Bragi Olafsson (1962) was born in Reykjavík and studied Spanish at the University of Iceland and the University of Granada in Spain. He has done a number of jobs in Reykjavík, at the post office, in a bank and a record store and was a member of different music bands for a number of years. One of them was the Sugarcubes, and Bragi toured with them in Europe and America. Currently, Bragi works at an advertising agency in Reykjavík, as well as being a writer. Other well-known novels are The Ambassador and The Narrator.
Essay about Bragi Olafsson
6. The Flatey Enigma (Flateyjargáta), by Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson (2003)
This interesting mystery is situated on Flatey, a tiny island (one by two kilometers) in the cluster of the western islands in Breiðafjörður (NW Iceland). As the name "Flatey" indicates, it is indeed very flat. In 1960, the year in which the story takes place, it has a church, a post office (with one telephone, the only one on the island), a doctor and two shops; the few score of inhabitants are sheep farmers and seal hunters. The island is visited by migratory birds, such as the puffin, which also occupies an important position on the island's menu (together with fermented shark and seal blubber). There is a regular ferry to ports on the Icelandic mainland.
On an uninhabited islet near Flatey seal hunters find a dead man, but no boat or remains of a shipwreck - and nobody is missing from the area. Kjartan, a representative of the district magistrate, is sent to Flatey to investigate the crime. He feels out of his element among the colorful inhabitants such as Grimur, the district officer/seal hunter, the local priest Thormodur Krakur, and the alluring doctor Johanna, who acts as coroner. Kjartan discovers a cryptic note in the dead man’s pocket which he relates to a famous medieval manuscript called the Flatey Book (Flateyjarbók or Codex Flateyensis), which contains a riddle believed to inflict a curse on anyone who attempts to solve its mysteries. At the end of every chapter Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson has incorporated a brief text from that manuscript, each about a violent deed of the Norse kings, and containing one of 40 riddles. Although the original manuscript is kept in Copenhagen (since 1971 in Reikjavik), the small library on Flatey (built in 1864 and the oldest library in Iceland) houses a copy.
The dead man then is identified as Gaston Lund, a noted Danish scholar of Icelandic antiquities known to be obsessed with the Flatey enigma, and now the investigation expands: an investigator from the Reykjavik police and a reporter launch their parallel research. This all leads to an unexpected and very original conclusion.
The novel is fascinating for the realistic descriptions of life on Flatey: the islander's diet, their small cottages, dress, their ethics and religious beliefs, and the fishing industry aimed at seal pups.
Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson (1955) has a B.Sc. degree in civil engineering and, in addition to having a successful career as a writer, he continues to work full-time at the Public Roads Administration in Iceland. His first two novels where published in 1978 and 1982 (long before Nordic noir became popular) and since 1998 he has published four more crime-novels, such as Daybreak, House of Evidence and Sun on Fire.
Essay about the author
7. The Blue Fox (Skugga-Baldur), by Sjón (2004)
This lyrical novella, set in Iceland in 1883, contains two connected threads: one is about a mean-spirited priest, who hunts and finally kills the blue fox of the title, only to be killed himself in the avalanche caused by the echoes of his gun; the other is a tenderhearted herbalist, Fridrik Fridjónsson, who rescues a girl with Down
syndrome from a shipwreck. Because she can't keep quiet, she is kicked out of the church by the above priest. In due course she collects natural wonders of the Icelandic
environment and even invents her own language. But this is all in retrospect, for when we first meet her she has already died and is made ready for burial.
The arctic fox (vulpes lagopus), also known as white fox, polar fox, or snow fox, is a small fox native to the arctic regions of the northern hemisphere, well adapted to living in cold environments, and known for its thick, warm fur that is also used as camouflage. Sjón gives spellbinding descriptions of the cold northern winters and the snowy landscapes.
[Arctic fox]
Sjón (Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson, 1962) is a poet, novelist, and lyricist who collaborates with the singer Björk. He began his writing career as a poet in the late 1970s and was a founding member of an important Neo-surrealist group; since the early 1980s he has also been active in Iceland's music scene. His books have been translated into 30 languages. Alongside his work as writer Sjón has taken part in a wide range of art exhibitions and music events. His longtime collaboration with the Icelandic singer Björk led to an Oscar nomination for his lyrics for the Lars von Trier movie Dancer in the Dark. Other novels are From the Mouth of the Whale and Moonstone.
Author's website
Interview at Words Without Borders
8. The Perfect Landscape (Hið fullkomna landslag), by Ragna Sigurðardóttir (2009)
A novel set in the Icelandic art world. Art historian Hanna has returned to Reikjavik from Amsterdam to run an experimental gallery, The Annexe, attached to the city's main art museum. She must adapt to her new job and new life and keep her head high among the usual office politics facing an outsider. There are three threads in the book. The major one is that of forgery in the art world. The economic bubble has yet to burst, and rich businessmen are eager to
become known as sponsors of culture by donating expensive artworks. Hanna's museum has recently received such a donation – a
landscape by a known early 20th c. Icelandic
artist. However, the painting's authenticity is called into doubt,
sending Hanna, in collaboration with a colleague, headlong into a tricky
investigation of the painting's origins. Her task is
undermined by a widespread unwillingness to upset the cozy relationship between big money and high culture by
revealing an embarrassing forgery.
As two more threads we also follow the well-meaning but perhaps misguided attempts of
Hanna to connect with the street kids who have covered public art works such as statues under graffiti, as well as her organization of the
first exhibition in The Annexe, which reveals that artists are very difficult
people.
Ragna Sigurðardóttir (1962) studied visual art at the Icelandic School of Arts and Craft (1985-1989), and then obtained an advanced degree from The Jan Eyck Academy in Maastricht (1989-1991). Since 2002, she has been an art critic for a major daily newspaper. The present novel is clearly based on her experiences in the Icelandic art world. The Perfect Landscape is her fourth novel.
About the author
9. Snowblind (Snjóblinda), by Ragnar Jónasson (2010)
Siglufjörður is a depressed fishing community in a narrow fjord on the far northern coast of Iceland, with a population of 1,200 - and shrinking, since the herring industry disappeared. The town is only accessible via a mountain pass and narrow tunnel. Everybody knows everybody, secrets can't be kept and no one locks their doors - in a way, it is symbolic for the whole of Iceland. This village becomes the first posting of rookie police detective Ari Thór Arason, who must leave his girlfriend, who is studying for doctor, behind in Reykjavik. Soon after his arrival, the peaceful town is shattered by two deaths: a young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed, grand old man of Icelandic literature falls to his death in the local theater. Ari investigates, but is trusted by almost no one (except a young woman, Ugla, who is herself involved in the town's mystery) and can trust no one from his side. An avalanche and unremitting snowstorms close the mountain pass, turning the town into a "locked room." Blinded by the snow, and with an unknown murderer who may strike again, the claustrophobic tension mounts, while Ari is thrust ever deeper into his own darkness. The narrative skips from viewpoint to viewpoint, revealing the interlocking lives of its characters.
Ragnar Jónasson (1976) is known for the bestselling "Dark Iceland" series, set in and around Siglufjörður, and featuring Detective Ari Thor. Ragnar works as a lawyer and teaches copyright law at Reykjavik University Law School. He has translated 14 of Agatha Christie's novels into Icelandic, and indeed, his own work has some of that author's qualities, such as good traditional plots. Ragner lives in Reykjavik where he is co-founder of the international crime-writing festival, Iceland Noir.
Author's website
Essay about the author
10. I Remember You (Ég man þig), by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (2010)
As a rationalist I am convinced that ghosts and supernatural phenomena don't exist, but that they are all hallucinations or otherwise "tricks of the mind." So I prefer ghost stories that leave a door open to a rational explanation, which is unfortunately not the case with I Remember You. The book is also only mildly scary, for the author has cut the story into two threads which are told alternately, so the tension is too frequently broken. What makes the novel interesting is the setting in Iceland's remote and bleak northwestern Westfjords area (which has a reputation for witchcraft). One thread tells how a couple and a female friend whose husband has recently died set out to renovate a rundown house as a guesthouse for tourists, in a totally isolated location: the long-abandoned fisherman's village of Hesteyri, which can only be reached by boat (a non-fictional location). They soon realize they are not as alone as they thought - someone or something among the abandoned houses wants them to leave: this later appears to be the ghost of a boy, who reminded me of the vengeful kid in the Japanese horror film Juon; The Grudge. The old house seems to have a horrific past...
Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Ísafjörður (the main town in the Westfjords), a young doctor who is investigating the weird suicide of
an elderly woman discovers that she was obsessed with his vanished son (whose body has never been located).
The woman has strange mutilations in the form of crosses on her back and seems to have been a member of a religious sect. The doctor gradually delves into the mystery...
The two threads come together at the end of the novel, when the truth becomes clear. I recommend this book for its setting in the stark landscape of the Westfjords, the wintry scenes and the atmosphere of increasing claustrophobia and darkness. The book was made into an eponymous film in 2017.
[Westfjords]
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (1963) writes both crime novels and children's fiction. The central character in her usual crime novels (but not in I Remember You, her only horror story) is Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, a lawyer. These crime novels are rather lighthearted and humorous and miss the dark atmosphere associated with Nordic noir novels (I enjoyed, for example, My Soul to Take). Yrsa Sigurdardóttir also has a career as a civil engineer.
Essay about the author
11. The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning (10 ráð til að hætta að drepa fólk og byrja að vaska upp), by Hallgrímur Helgason (2012)
This book is an intercultural romp through Reikjavik: how cold it is (even in summer), how quiet and how empty - and how egalitarian, gender-equal and helpful the Icelanders are. This all observed by an outsider, a Croat, Tomislav Bokšić, nicknamed Toxic, who used to live in New York. And oh yes, he works as a hitman for the Croatian mafia and has killed 66 people (and about the same number in the Croatian War of Independence). This "ecological killer" (he uses only one bullet per victim) now is visiting a gun-free country with a near-zero homicide rate - the author jokes about the fact that this peaceful, non-crime country is such a strong provider of Nordic noir crime novels. Since Toxic arrives in Iceland with no previous knowledge of the culture, the book acts as a funny crash course in Icelandic society.
The last victim the hitman killed was an undercover FBI agent and he therefore had to flee the U.S. At J.F. Kennedy Airport, he avoids detection by murdering a priest (the Reverend Friendly) and stealing the man's passport and plane ticket. Unexpected destination: Reikjavik, where he is met upon arrival by two Icelandic television evangelists, Guðmundur and his wife Sigríður. The hitman manages to pass for holy man Reverend Friendly - it appears to be very easy to pretend being a true Christian believer. When the police come searching for him, he seeks refuge with his hosts' daughter Gunnhildur, who dislikes her parents' religiosity and is pleased to harbor a criminal. The rich plot further includes a suicide attempt by Toxic when he discovers that his girlfriend in New York has been brutally murdered (his doorman finds her head in his fridge); a soul-purging program of bodily mortification when he confesses his sins to the evangelist couple; and a final dramatic encounter with his old mafia colleagues who have come to looking for him. In the end, a wounded Toxic settles down into a peaceful Icelandic life...
The novel was written in very playful English and translated into Icelandic by the author. The prose and dialogue are fresh and include many
phonetic jokes about Icelandic words and names that Toxic mishears and
then renders into funny English (Gunnhildur becomes "Gunholder"). First a commercial and critical failure, the book was picked up by Amazon Crossing and became a big bestseller. An odd but very fine novel, full of wry humor (and rather coarse language and situations, so not for the faint of heart).
[Reykjavik]
Hallgrímur Helgason (1959) started out as a visual artist but gradually became a writer as well. His best known books are 101 Reykjavik (1996), The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning (2008) and The Thousand Degree Woman (2011). Two of his novels have been turned into films and four of them have been adapted for the stage. He has held over 30 solo exhibitions of his paintings in Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and France, and his work can be found in several art museums.
Author's website
Essay about Hallgrimur Helgason
"Betrayal" is a fitting title for this novel, for there is a lot of backstabbing going on - people betraying others and then being betrayed themselves in turn. The story focuses on Ursula, who as a foreign aid worker in war-torn Syria and in Liberia during the Ebola epidemic has witnessed terrible things, and often been in danger herself (she is in fact traumatized). Now she has returned to Reykjavik with her husband and children and is offered what seems like a dream job: Interior Minister, drafted from outside politics to cover the post, which became open due to the resignation of her predecessor, for a year until the next elections (it is only in a very small country with a limited talent pool that such a career shift is possible - Iceland's ministers are comparable to the municipal councilors of a mid-sized city elsewhere!). In fact, as later appears she has been set up ("betrayed") by the Prime Minister, who wants her as outsider to take a very unpopular decision, after which she will be booted out again so that his own protege can take over. On top of that, starting on her first day in office she makes a series of mistakes. Out of a rather naive wish to do good she promises assistance to a woman who aggressively demands her daughter's rape gets looked into by the government - which sets off the unforeseen chain of events which will finally become her own undoing. The lesson is that one should be careful and diplomatic when starting an important job in a new environment and not upset anything before one knows how things are balanced.
There are more betrayals: Stella, an immigrant who works as cleaner at the Ministry, and who is the second most important character, betrays the trust in
her by selling confidential papers from the Minister's trash can to a reporter (but later more than makes up for that); in her private life Stella herself is betrayed by a girlfriend. In her private life, Ursula betrays her husband and family by having a fling with a lover - and that lover later is revealed to be a man who deeply betrays Ursula. So betrayals echo each other - and there are more of them then I can reveal here without giving away the whole plot.
We also have a funny situation again caused by Ursula's naivete: in good egalitarian style she refuses the car with driver offered her by the Ministry, but she soon must change her mind when she is attacked in the street - Gunnar, the driver, also doubles as her much needed bodyguard. And not everybody is what he seems to be: one of her "attackers" was a tramp who only wanted to tell her what he knew about the mysterious death of her father in prison many years ago, something which hooks into the core of the plot. But more than being only plot, the novel details Ursula's hectic job and daily private life in good Nordic style.
[Prime Minister's Residence, Iceland]
Icelandic crime-writer Lilja Sigurdardóttir (1972) was born in Akranes and raised in Mexico, Sweden, Spain and Iceland. An award-winning playwright, Lilja has written several crime novels, including Snare, Trap and Cage, making up the Reykjavik Noir trilogy, which became bestsellers worldwide.
Author's website
* All photos in this article are from Wikipedia.