Winner of the Icelandic Literary Prize' An extraordinary & original writer' AS Byatt on Sjon Reykjavik 1918 The eruptions of the Katla volcano darken the sky night & day Yet despite the natural disaster the shortage of coal & the Great War still raging in the outside world life in the small capital goes on as always Sixteen-year-old Mani Steinn lives for the movies Awake he lives on the fringes of society Asleep he dreams in pictures the threads of his own life weaving through the tapestry of the films he loves When the Spanish flu epidemic comes ashore killing hundreds of townspeople & forcing thousands to their sick beds the shadows that linger at the edges of existence grow darker & Mani is forced to re-evaluate both the society around him & his role in it Evoking the moment when Iceland's saga culture met the new narrative form of the cinema & when the isolated island became swept up in global events this is the story of a misfit transformed by his experiences in a world where life & death reality & imagination secrets & revelations jostle for dominance