Island

Description

Family 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. Is 'home' just a place name, or something more? Split across three generations of a Faroese family, 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.

Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen was born in 1980 into a Faroese-Danish family. She lives in Copenhagen and works as an author and critic. Island is her critically acclaimed and internationally award-winning debut novel, and has been translated into five languages.

'If somebody asked me what is the strength of this novel, I would replywithout a moment of hesitation: the tone. The atmosphere. And then Iwould immediately add: the style. The sentences which seep through thesoul and never leave. Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen captures what is vagueand incomprehensible, breathes through the words, the characters, and thegenerations. And she also captures what is most beautiful and painful: theregret in time.' - Jn Kalman Stefnsson 'Island talks about places as if they were people, of fjords as if they werethe wrinkles of our souls' - Valeria Parrella, Grazia