{"product_id":"islandisbn-9781782275800","title":"Island","description":"\u003cb\u003eA young Danish woman explores her family's past and Faroe Islands ancestry across three generations. In the process she uncovers details of the passions and challenges her grandparents and their siblings confronted when they were her age, and considers universal themes of home and identity.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLush, lyrical prose transports the reader.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFamily brings the young woman back to the Faroe Islands - the windswept, rocky northern archipelago where she has never lived but which she has always called home. There she finds her stories entwining with those of her ancestors as she searches for a way to connect with the culture and her kin. Rooted in the wild beauty of the islands and the author's own history, this is a bewitching tale of exile, homecoming, and what it means to belong.“A sensitive meditation on belonging.” \u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One of the most special books I’ve read in years. Absolutely gorgeous and intimate. It took me away\" -- \u003cb\u003eJami Attenberg, author of\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Middlesteins\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eIsland\u003c\/i\u003e talks about places as if they were people, of fjords as if they were the wrinkles of our souls.\" \u003cb\u003e-- Valeria Parrella, \u003ci\u003eGrazia\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Prose that is as deep as the sea surrounding everything.\" \u003cb\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eCorriere della Sera\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An ode to the legends we still need.\" \u003cb\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eLa Repubblica\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Dense and evocative, and manages to combine organic and lifeless matter with the fantastic.\" \u003cb\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eWired.it\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"If somebody asked me what is the strength of this novel, I would reply without a moment of hesitation: the tone. The atmosphere. And then I would immediately add: the style. The sentences which seep through the soul and never leave. Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen captures what is vague and incomprehensible, breathes through the words, the characters, and the generations. And she also captures what is most beautiful and painful: the regret in time.\" -- Jón Kalman Stefánsson, author of \u003ci\u003eHeaven and Hell\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"The sentences… seep through the soul and never leave.\" -- Jón Kalman StefánssonSiri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen was born in 1980 into a Faroese-Danish family. She lives in Copenhagen and works as an author and critic. \u003ci\u003eIsland\u003c\/i\u003e is her critically acclaimed and internationally award-winning debut novel, and has been translated into five languages.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eCaroline Waight is an award-winning literary translator working from Danish and German.She has translated a wide range of fiction and non-fiction. She lives and works in London.Su›uroy\u003cbr\u003e She stands with her back to the low copse of planted trees, looking down the mountain to\u003cbr\u003e the village, blue in the August night, and the sheep that are like stones among unbroken\u003cbr\u003e grass. Further off, the sea is sleeping. Vágs Fjord is still, blue on blue against the sky above\u003cbr\u003e the ruler-straight horizon, strung taut between the headlands, a line only ghosts and\u003cbr\u003e legends can walk.\u003cbr\u003e Now she closes her eyes. Bending all her young will she follows the blue road: past\u003cbr\u003e the Shetland Islands and Norway’s compact mountains, across the Kattegat and in over the\u003cbr\u003e low land, the butter land, the fields, the farms – all the way to the Zealand market town\u003cbr\u003e where Fritz must now be sleeping heavily.\u003cbr\u003e Marita, her name is. She’ll be leaving soon, and this is where she starts: Su›uroy, the\u003cbr\u003e southernmost island in the Faroes. Here the fjords are deep and the hills rugged. The\u003cbr\u003e landscape is knottier and more abrupt than on Marita’s island, Vágar, but it’s the first one\u003cbr\u003e you come to from the rest of the world.\u003cbr\u003e In the country she’s going to there is a railway. She pictures the tracks sluicing\u003cbr\u003e through the inhabited earth. People streaming away. Taking a train. You can get off\u003cbr\u003e wherever you like. In a city, perhaps. Another city. A forest.\u003cbr\u003e The trees sit up high in the uncultivated land further away from the village.\u003cbr\u003e The pines are battered and young. Wind-swept.\u003cbr\u003e She hears the noise.\u003cbr\u003e From up here the village looks tiny. The houses doze, turned towards the fjord.\u003cbr\u003e Their roofs catch the blue fore-light, shining palely like the crown of an infant’s head.\u003cbr\u003e Vágs Fjord is long and thin, a sausage of water between the mountains, which the\u003cbr\u003e currents of the sea have munched at. Au revoir, doll fjord. She thinks it. There’s more to life\u003cbr\u003e than this.\u003cbr\u003e She wants to hitch up her dress, take a running jump, sail clear over all of it – the\u003cbr\u003e parting, the journey. Now she’s in the new country, now she’s walking down a flat, paved\u003cbr\u003e street and into a house that smells of wood, and there stands her fiancé, there stands Fritz,\u003cbr\u003e as if no time has passed since they were separated, just turning and saying, ‘Oh, there you\u003cbr\u003e are.’ Just like that.\u003cbr\u003e She spits. The taste of resin fills her mouth, tacky on her gums. She bit down on a\u003cbr\u003e pinecone; that was earlier. It crunched all the way into her jawbone. Her teeth ground and\u003cbr\u003e the pinecone crunched, while her hand did what it had to with the steel wire.\u003cbr\u003e The wind pushed at the branches of the trees.\u003cbr\u003e The rust-brown needles fell.\u003cbr\u003e There, on the ground.\u003cbr\u003e It’s later now, she’s on her feet, she’s standing. The sea tussles with the sun behind\u003cbr\u003e the horizon. There’s a distant crackle of red. Brooks clink, waterfalls whistle. She has to go,\u003cbr\u003e down there. Hesitantly she teeters her pelvis forward. Tenses. One short, stupid moment\u003cbr\u003e she’s afraid some of the steel wire has got stuck.\u003cbr\u003e Marita is already in her church clothes. How far ahead, how cold-bloodedly, some\u003cbr\u003e might say, she was thinking before she struck out into the darkness. The dress is nice, the\u003cbr\u003e cut contemporary, taken from a Danish magazine. Marita sews her own clothes. Reads\u003cbr\u003e patterns and comes up with sleeves, bodices, skirt widths by eye. For a long time she’s\u003cbr\u003e dressed like someone meant for more than the factory by the harbour and an everyday in\u003cbr\u003e fish. The smell of sour woollen socks in the village hall. Some of them down there think she\u003cbr\u003e believes she’s too good for them. The same people also think she isn’t good enough. Marita\u003cbr\u003e knows that. She’s fond of them now, in the way you’re fond of people you’re shortly going to\u003cbr\u003e leave.","brand":"Pushkin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303006589157,"sku":"NP9781782275800","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781782275800_aad284e1-74f8-4dff-91e2-6c3b260faed1.jpg?v=1730752720","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/islandisbn-9781782275800","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}