Seal Woman

A native of Iceland, Solveig Eggerz spent her early childhood there, but then her family also lived in Germany, England and the U.S. She has a Ph.D. in medieval English, German, and Scandinavian comparative literature from Catholic University. An accomplished writer, she has worked as a journalist and as a professor of writing and research, and she currently teaches creative writing in the D.C. area. Solveig has a family history of writing and storytelling: "I've carried the stories my forefathers told in my heart all my life. My great-great grandfather, Fridrik Eggerz, a farmer and a protestant minister, wrote his autobiography when he was in his eighties, a book that documented 19th century Icelandic regional history; my grandfather, Sigurdur Eggerz, twice prime minister, wrote plays and essays. My father, Petur Eggerz, a foreign service officer, was a best-selling author in Iceland and wrote fiction and nonfiction until the day he died at age 80."

Seal Woman was a finalist for The Eric Hoffer Award. It won the first prize for fiction from the Maryland Writer's Association. "I found this book almost impossible to put down. It moves seamlessly with a quiet kind of beauty; Charlotte's secrets will haunt you for a long time." -- Robert Bausch "In this fierce and poignant novel, Solveig Eggerz deftly transports her readers between Germany and Iceland as her heroine struggles to come to terms with her past and her present. ... A beautiful and suspenseful debut." -- Margot Livesey "A wonderfully written story about the triumph of love, strength, and art over crippling loss." -- Barbara Esstman "Solveig Eggerz takes us to a littoral world where ancient legend touches everyday life as surely and constantly as the North Sea meets the coast of Iceland. Carrying the unwieldy grief and hope of a wartime past, the novel's heroine finds her own rough grace, beauty, and possibility of transformation in the new land she chooses to inhabit. A moving and contemporary story rewoven ion a mythic pattern." -- Dan Yashinsky