From the Mouth of the Whale

Author: 
Publisher: 
Place: 
London
Year: 
2011

The novel Rökkurbýsnir (2008), translated to English by Victoria Cribb.

About the book:

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 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.

From the Mouth of the Whale is a magical evocation of an enlightened mind and a vanished age.

Carolyne Larrington writes about Sjón and From the Mouth of the Whate in Times Literary Supplement, April 27, 2011