Miss Iceland / Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir ; translated from the Icelandic by Brian FitzGibbon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Auður A. Ólafsdóttir, 1958- author.

Contributor:

FitzGibbon, Brian (Translator), translator.

Standardized Title:

Ungfrú Ísland. English

Language:

English

Icelandic

Subjects (All):

Women authors--Fiction.

Women authors.

Social conditions.

Social role.

Iceland.

Social role--Fiction.

Friendship--Fiction.

Friendship.

Gay men--Fiction.

Gay men.

Fishers--Fiction.

Fishers.

Nineteen sixties--Fiction.

Nineteen sixties.

Iceland--Social conditions--20th century--Fiction.

Reykjavík (Iceland)--Fiction.

Reykjavík (Iceland).

Iceland--Reykjavík.

Genre:

Fiction.

Social problem fiction.

Physical Description:

238 pages ; 21 cm

Edition:

First Grove Atlantic paperback edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Black Cat, 2020.

Language Note:

Translated from the Icelandic.

Summary:

"Iceland in the 1960s. Hekla always knew she wanted to be a writer. In a nation of poets, where each household proudly displays leatherbound volumes of the Sagas, and there are more writers per capita than anywhere else in the world, there is only one problem: she is a woman. After packing her few belongings, including James Joyce's Ulysses and a Remington typewriter, Hekla heads for Reykjavík with a manuscript buried in her bags. She moves in with her friend Jon, a gay man who longs to work in the theater, but can only find dangerous, backbreaking work on fishing trawlers. Hekla's opportunities are equally limited: marriage and babies, or her job as a waitress, in which harassment from customers is part of the daily grind. The two friends feel completely out of place in a small and conservative world. And yet that world is changing: JFK is shot and hemlines are rising. In Iceland another volcano erupts and Hekla meets a poet who brings to light harsh realities about her art. Hekla realizes she must escape to find freedom abroad, whatever the cost. Miss Iceland is a novel of extraordinary poise and masterful acuity from one of our most celebrated Icelandic writers"-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

"Miss Iceland was first published as Ungfrú Ísland by Benedikt in Iceland in 2018. First published in English in the UK by Pushkin Press in 2020"--Title page verso.

ISBN:

9780802149237

0802149235

OCLC:

1156240722