Synopses & Reviews
Longlisted for the European Literature Prize, Jon Kalman Stefansson in one of Iceland's foremost writers. In
The Sorrow of Angels, Stefansson continues the touching story begun in heaven in Hell. It is three weeks since the boy came to town, carrying a book of poetry to return to the old sea captain--the poetry that did for his friend Barour. Three weeks, but already Barour's ghost has faded. Snow falls so heavily that it binds heaven and earth together.
As the villagers gather in the inn to drink schnapps and coffee while the boy reads to them from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Jens the postman stumbles in half dead, having almost frozen to his horse. On his next journey to the wide open fjords he is accompanied by the boy, and both must risk their lives for each other, and for an unusual item of mail.
The Sorrow of Angels is a timeless literary masterpiece; in extraordinarily powerful language it brings the struggle between man and nature tangibly to life. It is the second novel in Stefansson's epic and elemental trilogy, though all can be read independently.
Synopsis
The Sorrow of Angels is the second novel in an epic and elemental trilogy by the winner of the Icelandic Prize for Literature Jon Kalman Stefansson, and the follow up to Heaven and Hell (publishing in paperback 3/11/15.) The Sorrow of Angels continues to follow "the boy" who, after suffering a terrible loss at sea, stops at a small Icelandic village that will become his adopted home and his redemption. The book is a part of a trilogy, but as Susan Swarbrick wrote in The Herald Scotland, "If you haven't read Heaven And Hell, the first in Reykjavik-born author Jon Kalman Stefansson's captivating trilogy, that needn't be a deterrent from falling head over heels in love with The Sorrow Of Angels."
It is three weeks since the boy came to town, carrying a book of poetry to return to the old sea captain-the poetry Bar?ur died for. Three weeks, but already Bar?ur's ghost has faded. Snow falls so heavily that it binds heaven and earth together.
As the villagers gather in the inn to drink schnapps and coffee while the boy reads to them from Hamlet, Jens the postman stumbles in half-dead, having almost frozen to his horse. On his next journey to the fjords Jens is accompanied by the boy, and both must risk their lives for each other, and for an unusual item of mail.
The Sorrow of Angels is a timeless and powerful story that evokes the struggle of man against the ferocious majesty of nature. Asked by The Independent what inspired him to write these three novels, Stefansson named his first visit to the landscape of Iceland's West Fjords. "It was like a punch in the solar plexus . . . The mountains seemed to be saying, 'Why aren't you writing about us?" (Independent, 2013).
About the Author
Icelandic author, born in Reykjavík in 1963. Summer Behind the Slope, and Of Tall Trees and Time were nominated for the Nordic Council's Literary Prize. In Summer Light, Enter Night is set in a small village in the west of Iceland where one inhabitant after another wanders bewildered among the labyrinthine paths of the human heart. Jon Kalman Stefansson was awarded the 2005 Icelandic Literature Prize for this novel. In 2011 he awarded the prestigious P.O. Enquist Award. Over the last years Jon Kalman Stefansson has been working on the trilogy consisting of Heaven and Hell, The Sorrow of Angels, The Heart of Man. The third and final book in the trilogy won the Icelandic Bookseller's Prize 2011 and was nominated for the Icelandic Literature Prize. Stefansson has most recently won the Italian Grinzane Bottari Lattes Prize for The Sorrow of Angles--the second installment in the trilogy Heaven and Hell.