Imprint
- Sceptre
- Sceptre
Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Historical fiction
The highly-acclaimed novel by Iceland's internationally renowned writer Sjon - 'an extraordinary and original writer' A.S. Byatt - in a stunning new package.
Shortlisted for The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize 2013
Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2012
'Sjon's novels are brilliant collisions of history and fable, psychology and fantasy' Chris Power, Guardian
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 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.
More books by Sjon
Praise for From the Mouth of the Whale
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Kaleidoscopic and mesmerizing, comic and poignant - Times Literary Supplement
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'A terrific read...an extraordinarily accomplished novel' - Independent
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Every now and then a writer changes the whole map of literature inside my head. The most recent has been the Icelander Sjon, whose work is unlike anything I had read, and very exciting ... I think of Icelanders as erudite, singular, tough, and uncompromising. Sjon is all these things, but he is also quicksilver, playful and surreal ... [Sjon] has changed the way I see things. - A.S. Byatt, The New York Review of Books
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Sjon is the trickster that makes the world; and he is achingly brilliant... strange and wonderful, an epic made mad, made extraordinary. - Junot Diaz
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Hallucinatory, lyrical and by turn comic and tragic-an extraordinary novel. - Hari Kunzru
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Sjon's novels are brilliant collisions of history and fable, psychology and fantasy - Chris Power, Guardian
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Wildly comic and incandescent, elegant and brittle. - Keith Donohue, Washington Post
Sjon
Born in ReykjavA k in 1962, SjA n is the author of the novels The Blue Fox, The Whispering Muse, From the Mouth of the Whale, Moonstone and CoDex 1962, for which he has won several awards including the Nordic Council's Literature Prize and the Icelandic Literary Prize. He has also been shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and his work has been translated into thirty-five languages.
In addition, SjA n has written nine poetry collections as well as four opera librettos and lyrics for various artists. He lives in ReykjavA k, Iceland.
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