Miss Iceland
In 1960s Iceland, Hekla leaves for Reykjavik determined to become a writer, resisting the social expectations and gender roles placed upon her. The dreams and loneliness of her friends intersect with her own, creating a wry and tender portrait of the freedom to create.
Work Information
For Hekla, the future opens not through a beauty contest but through writing.
Hekla arrives in the capital with a manuscript and a typewriter, only to find that others expect her to become a symbol of beauty rather than a writer. With quiet wit and resistance, the novel explores a woman’s choices about art and life.
Review Summaries
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Readers value the tense structure and clear thematic focus. Many respond to the lingering atmosphere and characterization, while some find the quiet pacing demanding.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Grove Press, Black Cat
- Published
- 2020-06-16
- Pages
- 256 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.97 x 1.91 x 20.96 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780802149237
- ISBN-10
- 0802149235
- Price
- 3381 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Coming of Age
The extraordinary new novel from Nordic Council Literature Prize-winning Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir 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 Joyces’s Ulysess and a Remington typewriter, Hekla heads for Reykjavik with a manuscript buried in her bags. She moves in with her friend Jon, a gay man who longs to work in the theatre, 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.
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir is an Icelandic prize-winning novelist, playwright and a poet. She is the author of six novels, a collection of poetry and four plays that have been performed at the National Theatre in Iceland and at the Reykjavik City Theatre. She also writes the lyrics for the Icelandic performance pop band Milkywhale. Auður Ava's novels have been translated into over 25 languages and among them are The Greenhouse and Butterflies in November . Her last novel, Hotel Silence , won the Nordic Council Literature Prize and the Icelandic Literary Prize. Her forthcoming novel Miss Iceland won the Icelandic Bookseller's Prize. Auður Ava lives in Reykjavik.
Reviews
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i don't remember how i came across this book, i think amazon suggested it to me based on my other purchases, but often times it pays to stumble across a book without any agenda on your part as the reader. that way you don't go into the book hoping it will be about anything in particular. i loved the experience of this book. and i loved the simple (deceivingly so) way the book was written. SO much attention to detail in just a few carefully chosen words, all the while the reader is not aware of the writer's hand. how does it feel to live "fenced in"? what can one do to improve one's circumstances? oh sure, there is always the miss iceland beauty competition, which serves as a perfect model for despair. really, must a woman's only escape out of being pinned down result in standing on a stage for men to decide just how beautiful you are? isn't that the very height of despair right there? i love the way this book shared with us what it feels like to not fit into one's own community. i love the characters this book offers to us. the father with his love for volcanoes AND poetry, his quiet way of understanding his daughter and standing by her even as she goes away. while the whole book may feel casual at first glance, first read, this book is never casual. i couldn't wait to order another book by this author and am counting the days until it arrives.
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A fantastic, sweet read. I loved every page. The characters are great.
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I loved everything about this book. I loved the style and structure and the setting and the characters, The style is somewhat hard to describe. It is gentle but also humourous and quite punchy, and the subject is uncomfortable--sexism and homophobia. But something about the gentle and direct telling makes it go down easy. Iceland in the sixties is brought to the reader very clearly through scene and dialogue, and Iceland itself mostly through the weather, the northern latitude, and geology, which are all such prominent parts of that country. I wonder how the climate has changed there along with the social attitudes and laws. ,
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The depiction of life in Iceland was strange. Seeing people eat boiled potatoes and boiled fish was so unusual. And also the importance of volcanoes and of the sea.
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Miss Iceland brought back many pleasant memories of the year I spent at the American Embassy on Laufasvegur at almost the same time as the setting of the novel. The author covers all the bases I remember so well—the street names, the bookstores, the coffee drinking young poets, the restaurants, the struggles of young women, the heavy drinking men who earned a hard living in the fishing industry, the evenings I enjoyed at the ballroom at the Hotel Borg, the hospitality of Icelandic friends, and their unparalleled love for the written word. I was fortunate to meet many young writers, And I also enjoyed the company of a beautiful young woman who was in fact a Miss Iceland. Thank you for an enjoyable read.