Nordic Council Literature Prize
Hotel Silence
Ör, known in English as Hotel Silence, follows Jónas, a divorced Icelandic handyman whose life has collapsed and who travels to a war-scarred country intending to die. As he repairs a damaged hotel and helps the people around it, he begins to see his own wounds in a different light.
Work Information
The hands that repair a broken hotel slowly begin to repair a life.
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir's Nordic Council Literature Prize winner sends Jónas abroad with little more than a toolbox and a plan to disappear. Staying at Hotel Silence in a town marked by war, he begins making repairs for the hotel and its residents, slowly moving away from his own plan for death. The result is a story of renewal shaped by light irony and deep sorrow.
Review Summaries
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The novel is admired for combining quiet humor with bleak realities. Its lingering power comes from watching the protagonist's passive journey turn gradually toward life as he encounters the wounds of others.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Grove Press, Black Cat
- Published
- 2018-02-13
- Pages
- 288 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.34 x 1.27 x 20.32 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780802127501
- ISBN-10
- 0802127509
- Price
- 3363 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Literary
Winner of the Icelandic Literary Prize, Hotel Silence is a delightful and heartwarming new novel from Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, a writer who “upends expectations” ( New York Times ). Told with grace, insight, and humor, this is the story of one man’s surprising mid-life adventure of self-discovery that leads him to find a new reason for being. Jónas Ebeneser is a handy DIY kind of man with a compulsion to fix things, but he can’t seem to fix his own life. On the cusp of turning fifty, divorced, adrift, he’s recently discovered he is not the biological father of his daughter, Gudrun Waterlily, and he has sunk into an existential crisis, losing all will to live. As he visits his senile mother in a nursing home, he secretly muses on how, when, and where to put himself out of his misery. To prevent his only daughter from discovering his body, Jónas decides it’s best to die abroad. Armed with little more than his toolbox and a change of clothes, he flies to an unnamed country where the fumes of war still hover in the air. He books a room at the sparsely occupied Hotel Silence, in a small town riddled with landmines and the aftershocks of violence, and there he comes to understand the depths of other people’s scars while beginning to see his wounds in a new light. A celebration of life’s infinite possibilities, of transformations and second chances, Hotel Silence is a rousing story of a man, a community, and a path toward regeneration from the depths of despair.
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir was born in Iceland in 1958, studied art history in Paris and has lectured in the history of art. She has published a poetry collection and several novels, including Butterflies in November , which was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and The Greenhouse , which was translated into twenty-two languages, won the DV Culture Award for Literature, and was a finalist for the Nordic Council Literature Award. She currently lives and works in Reykjavik as the director of the University of Iceland’s Art Museum.
Reviews
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Gem of a book
A wonderful book about the redemptive possibilities of connection. The writing is sparse, but in one sentence Olafsdottir can convey a character’s entire lifetime. It is not a “lighthearted” book as some reviews have described it, but it is a beautiful portrayal of how all of us struggle to survive.
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A quiet, powerful story - Loved it!
A man believes his life no longer has any meaning. He sells his business and takes a flight to an unknown destination where he intends to end his life. He arrives at Hotel Silence, a formerly beautiful hotel in a village devastated by regional war. The people he meets are survivors, quietly determined to keep on living despite the destruction surrounding them. His abilities as a handyman are in dire need and he is drawn to help them rebuild their lives and their village and in so doing, he begins to question the reason that brought him here. The heartbreaking realities of the aftermath of a terrible war no one wants to remember or talk about are treated with a gentle but sure hand, and food for thought. I read the book in 3 evenings – I did not want the story to end and I will read the book again in a few months.
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If you are looking for a different book
Book club Enjoyed
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Non in italiano
Solo in inglese (non precisato)
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Four Stars
Touching story with likeable main character and interesting locale. Tinged with humor as well as poignancy.