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Iceland

The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist: Bad Seed, The Joyful Song of the Partridge,...
The Watchlist: May 2024
By Tobias Carroll
Icelandic dystopia. A Quebecois graphic novel. Queer short stories from Puerto Rico. Tobias Carroll recommends all this and more in his May Watchlist.
The covers of the ten books featured in the gift guide
Your 2022 Holiday Gift Guide to Reading in Translation
By Isabella Corletto
Ten recent books in translation that the readers in your life are sure to enjoy this holiday season.
Quake
By Auður Jónsdóttir
Eyes gape at me over cups of coffee, forkfuls of delicate shrimp.
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
On the Periphery
By Larissa Kyzer
The scope of the topics explored in this issue is, therefore, necessarily broad without being comprehensive.
The Sea Gives Us Children
By Thórdís Helgadóttir
Karen says she’s seen it when the souls begin their perambulations.
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
MultimediaMultilingual
April 2021 At Journeys End Iceland Life Jackets Feature
At Journey’s End
By Steinunn G. Helgadóttir
This last shift, the boats came in all night and we ran out of everything.
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
Multimedia
It’s difficult to calculate the influence of the missus of the night
By Bergrún Anna Hallsteinsdóttir
it’s difficult to appraise the unseeable
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
Multimedia
Blue Days
By Fríða Ísberg
That same month, she realizes that she’s never going to stop striving as long as she’s in Reykjavik.
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
A wrecked wooden ship lying on its side, half-buried in the sand
Photo by Tradd Harter on Unsplash
Sinkings
By Haukur Ingvarsson
the glacier is black / polar bears run on hot sand
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
Multimedia
The Husband and His Brother
By Björn Halldórsson
When Böddi came back to Iceland a month later, he was engaged.
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
MultimediaMultilingual
Medical tools hang on the wall in a doctor's office.
Unsplash
In Human-Made Society
By Eva Rún Snorradóttir
In order to get a visa, they had to explain to him how two women went about having sex.
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
Magma
By Thora Hjórleifsdóttir
He gets irritated, even seems hurt, if I put on makeup, and he asks accusingly, “Who are you doing that for?”
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
MultimediaMultilingual
Climates: On Environment
By Susan Harris
Global warming manifests in obvious ways.
Farewell to the White Giants
By Andri Snær Magnason
Chaos is not confined to the glacier’s edge.
Translated from Icelandic by Lytton Smith
The Queer “I”: The Tenth Queer Issue
By Susan Harris
All the pieces are told in the first person, lending intimacy and immediacy to the events they describe.
Abel’s Autobiography
By Kári Tulinius
I had two choices: I could wrest back control of my life or I could die.
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
MultimediaMultilingual
Austurvöllur on the Day of the Wake
By Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir
Bums roll around broken-legged in the grass.
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
Jerking Out of Rotation: Four Icelandic Poets
By Meg Matich
Given that its language is spoken by fewer than 350,000 people across the world, Iceland manages to publish an astonishing volume of poetry.
Mountain Hike
By Gyrðir Elíasson
the blue planet swam in the half-twilight of evening
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
Fragments from the Guidebook of the Dead
By Gyrðir Elíasson
There will come a time when / the planet will have had enough
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
Another Letter to Mister Brown
By Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir
You are the main man, Mister Brown / I am just a victim of circumstance
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
Black Sea
By Magnús Sigurðsson
The dark kaiser’s ship, / deep-keeled, cuts the water
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
Evolution
By Magnús Sigurðsson
Let me / help you / said the ape.
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
Bus Sequence
By Arngunnur Árnadóttir
Each shared bus ride was like a ritual
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
House No. 451
By Gyrðir Elíasson
She finds my writing bizarre; no one does it, especially not in a town like this.
Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
Multilingual
Inferno
By Gyrðir Elíasson
Strindberg had ended up after death here, in a branch of IKEA in Iceland.
Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
Multilingual
The Sound Words Have
By Þórarinn Eldjárn
Once there was a town where no two people spoke the same language.
Translated from Icelandic by Lytton Smith
Multilingual
lithograph
By Sjón
Marie was alone there and showed the painter how she and Pierre / wrestled with radium
Translated from Icelandic by David McDuff
The moon is visible in the pink sky over a snowy mountain valley and frozen river
Photo by Daiwei Lu on Unsplash
solstice
By Sjón
The earth (like the heart) leans back in its seat
Translated from Icelandic by David McDuff
the stone collector’s song
By Sjón
Sulphur–pyrite–opal / and jasper–dear friends!
Translated from Icelandic by David McDuff
2093
By Andri Snær Magnason
He’ll eat anything except people and foxes.
Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
Multilingual
Patriotic Poem
By Gerdur Kristný
The cold makes me / a lair from fear.
Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
Multilingual
Skagafjörður
By Gerdur Kristný
I try to be / kind to the children / so they’ll tend my grave
Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
Multilingual
The Chamber Music
By Bragi Ólafsson
I'll possibly throw myself onto the pyre.
Translated from Icelandic by Lytton Smith
Multilingual
January 19th
By Sigurbjorg Þrastardottir
She says / she’s preparing herself.
Translated from Icelandic by T. Zachary Cotler
Multilingual
Three Women Poets
By Peter Constantine
A man in a pirate sweater / comes in through the door
Translated from Icelandic by the author
four creaking wheels
By Sindri Freysson
perhaps they’re kindling the ovens at the crematorium.
Translated from Icelandic by Martin Regal
Multilingual
Dessert
By Kristín Ómarsdottir
You have all sucked at my breasts.
Translated from Icelandic by Peter Constantine
The Slayer of Souls
By Ólafur Gunnarsson
She very much enjoyed being made love to by her husband in a bed that had belonged to another woman.
Translated from Icelandic by the author
Multilingual
Café Borges
By Sigurbjorg Þrastardottir
Up and down the hill the dead pass, patting the café wall.
Translated from Icelandic by T. Zachary Cotler
Multilingual
The Story of One Occasion
By Kristín Ómarsdottir
On one of many occasions Greta Garbo visited her fellow actress Marilyn Monroe in her home town, the City of Angels.
Translated from Icelandic by Janice Balfour