Synopses & Reviews
"Achingly brilliant, an epic made mad, made extraordinary."Junot Díaz
"Hallucinatory, lyrical, by turns comic and tragic, this extraordinary novel should make Sjón an international name. His evocation of seventeenth century Iceland through the eyes of a man born before his time has stuck in my mind like nothing else Ive read in the last year."Hari Kunzru
The year is 1635. Iceland is a world darkened by superstition, poverty, and cruelty.
Men of science marvel over a unicorn's horn, poor folk worship the Virgin in secret, and both books and men are burnt.
Jonas Palmason, a poet and self-taught healer, has been condemned to exile for heretical conduct, having fallen foul of the local magistrate. Banished to a barren island, Jonas recalls his gift for curing "female maladies," his exorcism of a walking corpse on the remote Snjafjoll coast, the frenzied massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers, and the deaths of three of his children.
Sjón was born in Reykjavik in 1962. He won the Nordic Councils Literature Prize (the equivalent of the Man Booker Prize) for The Blue Fox, which was also longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2009. Sjón was nominated for an Oscar for the song lyrics he wrote for Björk in the film Dancer in the Dark and has been working on Björk's latest project, Biophilia. His work has been translated into twenty-three languages.
Review
"
Sjon is the trickster that makes the world; and he is achingly brilliant.
From the Mouth of the Whale is strange and wonderful, an epic made mad, made extraordinary."
Junot DíazReview
Sjón writes like a madman. His novel is by turns wildly comic and
incandescent, elegant and brittle with the harsh loneliness of a world
turned to winter. Washington Post
"Sjón is the trickster that makes the world; and he is achingly brilliant.From the Mouth of the Whale is strange and wonderful, an epic made mad, made extraordinary."Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
"Hallucinatory, lyrical, by turns comic and tragic, this extraordinary novel should make Sjón an international name. His evocation of seventeenth century Iceland through the eyes of a man born before his time has stuck in my mind like nothing else Ive read in the last year." Hari Kunzru, author of The Impressionist and My Revolutions
"Sjón is a poet, and the aesthetic excitement is his own. He is an extraordinary and original writer. And his translator, Victoria Cribb, is also extraordinary in her rendering of the roughness and the elegance, the clarity and the oddity of this splendid book." A.S.Byatt, The Guardian
'Beautiful prose, sharp observation of nature, folklore, poetry, grotesque violence, human loss, and outright comic chaos weave in and out of this confidently written novel in which the narrative tone is in perfect pitch with the story being told.' New York Journal of Books
It gracefully captures the spirit of the age...a moving and often humorous tale” Winnepeg Free Press
"Intense and enigmatic, Jónas tale unfolds with the power of both myth and memory." Booklist
"The narrative is kaleidoscopic and mesmerizing, comic and poignant by turns. Victoria Cribbs translation brilliantly captures these multiple changes in tone and scene. From the Mouth of the Whale should open up a world of Icelandic writing, ...a world of nature and of ideas, which stands comparison with the Iceland of the Nobel Prize laureate Halldór Laxness." Carolyne Larrington, The Times Literary Supplement
"This is an extraordinarily accomplished novel that challenges and informs the reader in equal measure. Victoria Cribb's superb translation conveys the intricacies of Sjón's language, Jonas's strange turns of phrase, and the novel's meandering narrative." Lucy Popescu, The Independent
Synopsis
A magical evocation of an enlightened mind and a vanished age.
About the Author
Sjón was born in Reykjavik in 1962. He won the Nordic Councils Literature Prize (the equivalent of the Man Booker Prize) for The Blue Fox, which was also long listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2009. Sjón was nominated for an Oscar the song lyrics he wrote for Björk in the film Dancer in the Dark. His work has been translated into twenty-three languages.