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 & yet it is a celebration of life
- the passion between a man & a woman forbidden love violence sorrow betrayal Happiness & misfortune are passed down from one generation to the next The sorrow over what was & what might have been weighs heavily on the characters & 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 & into a society that has undergone great transformation within a century In language both archaic & lyrical & yet entirely contemporary & full of humour Jon Kalman Stefansson 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