Jón Kalman Stefánsson – författare

"Comparisons do not do justice to the complexity of Stefansson's book, nor the uniqueness of his prose" DANIEL MASON, author of North Woods"Stefánsson shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy" EILEEN BATTERSBY, TLS"A rich depiction of life, love and loss . . . Stefánsson is a writer of great scope and imagination" RONAN HESSION, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul"Stefánsson's prose rolls and surges with oceanic splendour" BOYD TONKIN, Spectator A spellbinding saga about the inhabitants and inheritors of one rural community, by one of Iceland's most celebrated novelists.A man comes to awareness in a church in rural Iceland, not knowing why he's there or how he arrived. When a local woman offers to reunite him with her sister, he realises he's lost not only his bearings, but his memory as well: he doesn't recognise either woman, and as their stories unfold, he is plunged into a history spanning centuries and lives: a city girl drawn to the fjords by the memory of a blue-eyed gaze; a farmer's wife whose essay on the humble earthworm changes the course of lives; a pastor who writes to dead poets and falls in love with a stranger; a musician plagued by cosmic loneliness, who discovers that his life has been a lie; and an alcoholic transfixed by the night sky. Faced with the violence of destiny and the effects of choices, made and avoided, that cascade between lives, each discovers the cost of following the magnetic needle of the heart.An incandescent, audacious novel about the misfortune of mortality and the strange salve of time, Your Absence is Darkness is a spellbinding story of death, desire and the perfect agony of star-crossed love.Translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton

Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017Keflavik: a town that may be the darkest place in Iceland, surrounded by black lava fields, hemmed in by a sea that may not be fished, and site of the U.S. military base, whose influences shaped Icelandic culture from the '50s to the dawning of the new millennium. Ari - a writer and publisher - lands back in Keflavik from Copenhagen. His father is dying, and he is flooded by memories of his youth in the '70s and '80s, listening to Pink Floyd and the Beatles, raiding American supply lorries and discovering girls. And one girl he could never forget. Layered through Ari's story is that of his grandparents in a village on the eastern coast, a world away from modern Keflavik. For his grandfather Oddur, life at sea was a destiny; for Margrét its elemental power brings only loneliness and fear. Both the story of a singular family and an epic that sparkles with love, pain and lifelong desire - with all of human life - Fish have no Feet is a novel of profound beauty and wisdom by a major international writer.By the author of the acclaimed trilogy, Heaven and Hell, The Sorrow of Angels and The Heart of Man.

A modern saga spanning the whole of the 20th century, by one of Iceland's most celebrated writers.At the beginning of this story there is death, and yet it is a celebration of life - the passion between a man and a woman, forbidden love, violence, sorrow, betrayal. Happiness and misfortune are passed down from one generation to the next. The sorrow over what was and what might have been weighs heavily on the characters and at the end of this chain, for now, stands Ari, on his way to his dying father, with a score still to be settled. The raw beauty of life is written into the dramatic Icelandic landscape, and into a society that has undergone great transformation within a century. In language both archaic and lyrical, and yet entirely contemporary and full of humour, Jón Kalman Stefánsson proves himself one of the finest European writers of his generation.A companion volume to Fish Have No Feet (longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017).Translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF THE ICELANDIC LITERATURE PRIZE"The Icelandic Dickens" Irish Examiner"Stefánsson shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy" EILEEN BATTERSBY, T.L.S. Supplement"A wonderful, exceptional writer . . . A timeless storyteller" CARSTEN JENSEN"Sometimes, in small places, life becomes bigger"Sometimes a distance from the world's tumult opens our hearts and our dreams. In a village of four hundred souls, the infinite light of an Icelandic summer makes its inhabitants want to explore, and the eternal night of winter lights up the magic of the stars.The village becomes a microcosm of the age-old conflict between human desire and destiny, between the limits of reality and the wings of the imagination. With humour, with poetry, and with a tenderness for human weaknesses, Stefánsson explores the question of why we live at all.Translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton

It is three weeks since the boy came to town, carrying a book of poetry to return to the old sea captain - the poetry that did for his friend Bárður. Three weeks, but already Bárður's ghost has faded. Snow falls so heavily that it binds heaven and earth together. As the villagers gather in the inn to drink schnapps and coffee while the boy reads to them from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Jens the postman stumbles in half dead, having almost frozen to his horse. On his next journey to the wide open fjords he is accompanied by the boy, and both must risk their lives for each other, and for an unusual item of mail. The Sorrow of Angels is a timeless literary masterpiece; in extraordinarily powerful language it brings the struggle between man and nature tangibly to life. It is the second novel in Stefánsson's epic and elemental trilogy, though all can be read independently.

"Comparisons do not do justice to the complexity of Stefansson's book, nor the uniqueness of his prose" DANIEL MASON, author of North Woods"Stefánsson shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy" EILEEN BATTERSBY, TLS"A rich depiction of life, love and loss . . . Stefánsson is a writer of great scope and imagination" RONAN HESSION, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul"Stefánsson's prose rolls and surges with oceanic splendour" BOYD TONKIN, Spectator A spellbinding saga about the inhabitants and inheritors of one rural community, by one of Iceland's most celebrated novelists.A man comes to awareness in a church in rural Iceland, not knowing why he's there or how he arrived. When a local woman offers to reunite him with her sister, he realises he's lost not only his bearings, but his memory as well: he doesn't recognise either woman, and as their stories unfold, he is plunged into a history spanning centuries and lives: a city girl drawn to the fjords by the memory of a blue-eyed gaze; a farmer's wife whose essay on the humble earthworm changes the course of lives; a pastor who writes to dead poets and falls in love with a stranger; a musician plagued by cosmic loneliness, who discovers that his life has been a lie; and an alcoholic transfixed by the night sky. Faced with the violence of destiny and the effects of choices, made and avoided, that cascade between lives, each discovers the cost of following the magnetic needle of the heart.An incandescent, audacious novel about the misfortune of mortality and the strange salve of time, Your Absence is Darkness is a spellbinding story of death, desire and the perfect agony of star-crossed love.Translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton

After coming through the blizzard that almost cost them everything, Jens and the boy are far from home, in a fishing community at the edge of the world. Taken in by the village doctor, the boy once again has the sense of being brought back from the grave. But this is a strange place, with otherworldly inhabitants, including flame-haired Álfheiður, who makes him wonder whether it is possible to love two women at once; he had believed his heart was lost to Ragnheiður, the daughter of the wealthy merchant in the village to which he must now inexorably return. Set in the awe-inspiring wilderness of the extreme north, The Heart of Man is a profound exploration of life, love and desire, written with a sublime simplicity. In this conclusion to an audacious trilogy, Stefánsson brings a poet's eye and a philosopher's insight to a tale worthy of the sagasmiths of old.

"The first of an extraordinary trilogy" DANIEL MASON, author of North WoodsIn a remote part of Iceland, a boy and his friend Barður join a boat to fish for cod. A winter storm surprises them out at sea and Barður, who has forgotten his waterproof as he was too absorbed in 'Paradise Lost', succumbs to the ferocious cold and dies. Appalled by the death and by the fishermen's callous ability to set about gutting the fatal catch, the boy leaves the village, intending to return the book to its owner. The extreme hardship and danger of the journey is of little consequence to him - he has already resolved to join his friend in death. But once in the town he immerses himself in the stories and lives of its inhabitants, and decides that he cannot be with his friend just yet. Set at the turn of the twentieth century, Heaven and Hell is a perfectly formed, vivid and timeless story, lyrical in style, and as intense a reading experience as the forces of the Icelandic landscape themselves. An outstandingly moving novel.