Jón Kalman Stefánsson Iceland
Icelandic author, born in Reykjavík in 1963. Over the last few years he has created an individual and enchanting fictional world in a series of related novels and short stories. Two of these works, Summer Behind the Slope, and Of Tall Trees and Time were nominated for the Nordic Council's Literary Prize.
In Summer Light, Enter Night Jón Kalman continues to expand his fictional world, this time with an unusual collection of related stories and fragments. The setting is a small village in the west of Iceland where one inhabitant after another wanders bewildered among the labyrinthine paths of the human heart. Jón Kalman was awarded the 2005 Icelandic Literature Prize for this novel.
Over the last years Jón Kalman has been working on a trilogy which so far consists of two books Himnaríki og helviti (Heaven and Hell) (Bjartur, 2007) and Harmur Englanna (The Sorrow of Angels) (Bjartur, 2009). He has just finished work on the last and final book in the trilogy.
NEW NOVEL:
Hjarta Mansinns (The Heart of Man) Bjartur, Autumn 2011
An old Arab medical text states that the human heart is divided into two chambers; one is called happiness, the other despair. Because there are two chambers it is possible to love two people at the same time— the biology itself offers this, demands it, some would say, while the conscience, consciousness, tells us something completely different, making life quite unbearable at times.
Rights sold:
Czech Republic, Dybbuk Publishing House
Norway: Forlaget Press
Denmark: Batzer & Co.
Sweden: Svante Weyler Bokförlag
Harmur Englanna
(The Sorrow of Angels)
Bjartur, Autumn 2009
Time is sometimes a bloody nuisance. It gives us everything, only to take it all away again. It has been three weeks now since the boy came to town carrying a load of dangerous poetry on his back and the distance between Bárður and his life increases mercilessly with every day that passes.
Jens the postman is back in town, having just escaped the northern winds, even though Spring has come. Together he and the boy go over to the Winter Beach. It's the end of April and the falling snow bridges heaven and earth and wipes out the directions and the landscape. If the devil created anything in this world, apart from money, he created a blizzard in the mountains.
Harmur Englanna is the second volume of the trilogy which consists of Himnaríki og helviti (vol. 1), but both titles can be read independently.
Rights sold:
Germany: Piper Verlag
Denmark: Batzer & Co.
Norway: Forlaget Press
The Netherlands: Ambo Anthos
France: Gallimard
Sweden: Svante Weyler Bokförlag
World English Rights: MacLehose Publishers
Czech: Dybbuk
Poland: W.A.B. Publishers
Excerpts from the reviews:
"... thus the small island of Iceland becomes – in Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s moving, linguistically and stylistically masterful novel The Sorrow of Angels – the epitome of the here below, and the struggle of these two men becomes an exemplary attempt to master fate and retain Man’s fundamental dignity and worth." FAZ
5 stars: “Sorrow of the Angels retains the skyhigh standards. Once more you have to surrender unconditionally to Jón Kalman Stefánsson who writes so beautifully that the angels have to smile, even as they grieve.” Jyllands-Posten
Himnaríki og helviti
(Heaven and Hell)
Bjartur, 2007
One night the boy and Bárdur row out in a six-oared boat to lay their nets in the vastness of the Isafjardardjúp. Here they wait into the early morning hours for a catch that has been swimming in the sea almost unchanged for 120 million years. As the Arctic wind fiercely pierces their carefully padded sweaters, the line between life and death for the two men rests on a single garment: a leather coat.
Himnaríki og helviti is the first book in the trilogy, but it stands beautifully alone and can be read independently.
Rights sold:
Germany: Reclam
France: Gallimard
Sweden: Svante Weyler Förlag
Denmark: Batzer & Co.
The Netherlands: Ambo Anthos
World English rights: MacLehose Publishers
Spain: Salamandra
Italy: Iperborea
Poland: Wydawnictwo W. A. B.
Norway: Forlaget Press
Ethiopia: Fabula Arts Productions
Czech: Dybbuk
Bulgaria: Janet45
Sumarljós og svo kom nóttin
(Summer Light, Enter Night)
Bjartur, 2005
Snarkid í stjörnunum
(The Crackle of the Stars)
Bjartur, 2003
Ymislegt um risafurur og tímann
(Of Tall Trees and Time)
Bjartur, 2001