Iceland
Country 33 of 196
Project 196 is my attempt to post in 196 weeks on a short story from each of the 196 countries (per UNESCO) of the Earth. (I have seen statements that there are more than this but I will follow UNESCO) . I know this is a kind of Quixotic project but I do love the Don and I think it is possible to finish it and I am giving myself a long time. Today I am posting on a short story by a well known author from Iceland. The literature of Iceland has old roots in
I read this story in Best European Fiction 2012, a superb collection of short stories. I will just speak briefly on the story. It is told in the first person by a teen age girl. The story opens interestingly with an account of her thoughts on strange girl with no friends whose parents were communists. It was very amusing to listen into the narrator's thoughts on the nature of communism. There is a good bit of talk about drinking but the real fun and worth of this story is the look it gives us into the mind of an Icelandic teenager.
The story was translated from Icelandic by Christopher Burawa
Gerður Kristný is an internationally published and translated writer of poetry, short stories, novels, and books for children. She won the Icelandic Journalism Award in 2005 for a biography, and then the Icelandic Literature Award in 2010 for her book of poetryBloodhoof, based on an ancient Nordic myth, published in English by Arc in 2012. Her other awards include the Icelandic Children’s Choice Awards (2003), Halldor Laxness Literary Award (2004), and the West-Nordic Children’s Literature Award (2010). Her play,The Dancing at Bessastadir, based on two of her children’s books, premièred in the Icelandic National Theatre in Reykjavik in 2011.
On her first name, in some places including Poetry International I have seen her first name with an alterative spellling but i am using the one in Best European Fiction 2012. Mel u
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