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Showing 1 - 15 of
15 matches in All Departments
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Your Absence is Darkness
Jón Kalman Stefánsson; Translated by Philip Roughton
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R550
R440
Discovery Miles 4 400
Save R110 (20%)
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Ships in 5 - 10 working days
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A man finds himself in a church somewhere in the Westfjords, not
knowing how he got there, or why. It's as if he has lost all his
bearings. When he discovers the inscription "Your absence is
darkness" on a tomb in the village cemetery, a woman posing as the
daughter of the deceased offers to take him to her sister who runs
the only hotel in the area. The man then realizes that he is not
just lost, but amnesiac: and yet everyone seems to know him. Little
by little, different stories then unfold as if to restore his lost
memory, plunging him into the extraordinary history of a family,
from the middle of the 19th century until 2020. Mistakes,
weaknesses and renunciations dominate the lives of these women and
men as much as the quest for happiness. All are faced with the
question of how to love, and all must make difficult choices. Your
Absence Is Darkness is striking in its scale, its construction and
its audacity: the number of characters, the span of time, the power
of feelings, the violence of destinies - the stories are embedded
in each other, forming an extraordinary mosaic, as if Stefánsson
had wanted to reconstitute the lost memory not of a character, but
of all of humanity. The result is incandescent.
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Your Absence Is Darkness
Jón Kalman Stefánsson; Translated by Philip Roughton
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R536
R450
Discovery Miles 4 500
Save R86 (16%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Over 18 million copies sold worldwide. The bestselling Icelandic
author of all time. 'One of the greats of modern crime fiction'
Sunday Times __________________________________________ When a
young woman known for drug smuggling goes missing, her elderly
grandparents have no choice but to call the retired Detective
Konrád. Still looking for his own father's murderer, Konrád
agrees to investigate the case. But digging into the past reveals
more than he set out to discover, and a strange connection to a
little girl who drowned in the ReykjavÃk city pond decades ago
recaptures everyone's attention. A brilliant, chilling tale of
broken dreams and children who have nowhere to turn.
__________________________________ 'The undisputed king of the
Icelandic thriller' Guardian 'An international literary phenomenon
- and it's easy to see why. His novels are gripping, authentic,
haunting and lyrical' Harlan Coben
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Karitas Untitled (Paperback)
Kristin Marja Baldursdottir; Translated by Philip Roughton
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R284
R218
Discovery Miles 2 180
Save R66 (23%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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A portrait of an artist trapped by convention and expectations but
longing for the chaos that can set her free. Growing up on a farm
in early twentieth-century rural Iceland, Karitas Jonsdottir, one
of six siblings, yearns for a new life. An artist, Karitas has a
powerful calling and is determined to never let go of her true
being, one unsuited for the conventional. But she is powerless
against the fateful turns of real life and all its expectations of
women. Pulled back time and again by design and by chance to the
Icelandic countryside-as dutiful daughter, loving mother, and
fisherman's wife-she struggles to thrive, to be what she was meant
to be. Spanning decades and set against a breathtaking historical
canvas, Karitas Untitled, an award-winning classic of Icelandic
literature, is a complex and immersive portrait of an artist's
conflict with love, family, nature, and a country unaccustomed to
an untraditional woman-but most of all, with herself and the
creative instincts she has no choice but to follow.
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Heaven and Hell (Paperback)
Jon Kalman Stefansson; Translated by Philip Roughton, Roughton, Phil
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R294
R238
Discovery Miles 2 380
Save R56 (19%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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In a remote part of Iceland, a boy and his friend Bardur join a
boat to fish for cod. A winter storm surprises them out at sea and
Bardur, who has forgotten his waterproof as he was too absorbed in
'Paradise Lost', succumbs to the ferocious cold and dies. Appalled
by the death and by the fishermen's callous ability to set about
gutting the fatal catch, the boy leaves the village, intending to
return the book to its owner. The extreme hardship and danger of
the journey is of little consequence to him - he has already
resolved to join his friend in death. But once in the town he
immerses himself in the stories and lives of its inhabitants, and
decides that he cannot be with his friend just yet. Set at the turn
of the twentieth century, Heaven and Hell is a perfectly formed,
vivid and timeless story, lyrical in style, and as intense a
reading experience as the forces of the Icelandic landscape
themselves. An outstandingly moving novel.
Over 18 million copies sold worldwide. The bestselling Icelandic
author of all time. 'One of the greats of modern crime fiction'
Sunday Times __________________________________________ When a
young woman known for drug smuggling goes missing, her elderly
grandparents have no choice but to call the retired Detective
Konrád. Still looking for his own father's murderer, Konrád
agrees to investigate the case. But digging into the past reveals
more than he set out to discover, and a strange connection to a
little girl who drowned in the ReykjavÃk city pond decades ago
recaptures everyone's attention. A brilliant, chilling tale of
broken dreams and children who have nowhere to turn.
__________________________________ 'The undisputed king of the
Icelandic thriller' Guardian 'An international literary phenomenon
- and it's easy to see why. His novels are gripping, authentic,
haunting and lyrical' Harlan Coben
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The Sorrow of Angels (Paperback)
Jon Kalman Stefansson; Translated by Philip Roughton
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R300
R245
Discovery Miles 2 450
Save R55 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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It is three weeks since the boy came to town, carrying a book of
poetry to return to the old sea captain - the poetry that did for
his friend Bardur. Three weeks, but already Bardur's ghost has
faded. Snow falls so heavily that it binds heaven and earth
together. As the villagers gather in the inn to drink schnapps and
coffee while the boy reads to them from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Jens
the postman stumbles in half dead, having almost frozen to his
horse. On his next journey to the wide open fjords he is
accompanied by the boy, and both must risk their lives for each
other, and for an unusual item of mail. The Sorrow of Angels is a
timeless literary masterpiece; in extraordinarily powerful language
it brings the struggle between man and nature tangibly to life. It
is the second novel in Stefansson's epic and elemental trilogy,
though all can be read independently.
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The Heart of Man (Paperback)
Jon Kalman Stefansson; Translated by Philip Roughton
1
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R302
R247
Discovery Miles 2 470
Save R55 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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After coming through the blizzard that almost cost them everything,
Jens and the boy are far from home, in a fishing community at the
edge of the world. Taken in by the village doctor, the boy once
again has the sense of being brought back from the grave. But this
is a strange place, with otherworldly inhabitants, including
flame-haired Alfheidur, who makes him wonder whether it is possible
to love two women at once; he had believed his heart was lost to
Ragnheidur, the daughter of the wealthy merchant in the village to
which he must now inexorably return. Set in the awe-inspiring
wilderness of the extreme north, The Heart of Man is a profound
exploration of life, love and desire, written with a sublime
simplicity. In this conclusion to an audacious trilogy, Stefansson
brings a poet's eye and a philosopher's insight to a tale worthy of
the sagasmiths of old.
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Fish Have No Feet (Paperback)
Jon Kalman Stefansson; Translated by Philip Roughton
1
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R304
R249
Discovery Miles 2 490
Save R55 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017 Keflavik: a
town that may be the darkest place in Iceland, surrounded by black
lava fields, hemmed in by a sea that may not be fished, and site of
the U.S. military base, whose influences shaped Icelandic culture
from the '50s to the dawning of the new millennium. Ari - a writer
and publisher - lands back in Keflavik from Copenhagen. His father
is dying, and he is flooded by memories of his youth in the '70s
and '80s, listening to Pink Floyd and the Beatles, raiding American
supply lorries and discovering girls. And one girl he could never
forget. Layered through Ari's story is that of his grandparents in
a village on the eastern coast, a world away from modern Keflavik.
For his grandfather Oddur, life at sea was a destiny; for Margret
its elemental power brings only loneliness and fear. Both the story
of a singular family and an epic that sparkles with love, pain and
lifelong desire - with all of human life - Fish have no Feet is a
novel of profound beauty and wisdom by a major international
writer. By the author of the acclaimed trilogy, Heaven and Hell,
The Sorrow of Angels and The Heart of Man.
AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF THE ICELANDIC LITERATURE
PRIZE "The Icelandic Dickens" Irish Examiner "Stefansson shares the
elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy" EILEEN BATTERSBY, T.L.S.
Supplement "A wonderful, exceptional writer . . . A timeless
storyteller" CARSTEN JENSEN "Sometimes, in small places, life
becomes bigger" Sometimes a distance from the world's tumult opens
our hearts and our dreams. In a village of four hundred souls, the
infinite light of an Icelandic summer makes its inhabitants want to
explore, and the eternal night of winter lights up the magic of the
stars. The village becomes a microcosm of the age-old conflict
between human desire and destiny, between the limits of reality and
the wings of the imagination. With humour, with poetry, and with a
tenderness for human weaknesses, Stefansson explores the question
of why we live at all. Translated from the Icelandic by Philip
Roughton
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Salka Valka (Paperback)
Halldor Laxness; Translated by Philip Roughton
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R344
R284
Discovery Miles 2 840
Save R60 (17%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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A new translation of Nobel Prize-winning author Halldor Laxness's
masterpiece Late one snowy midwinter night, in a remote Icelandic
fishing village, a penniless woman arrives by boat. She comes with
her daughter, the young but gutsy Salka Valka. The two must forge a
life in this remote place, where everyone is at the mercy of a
single wealthy merchant, and where everything revolves around fish.
After her mother's tragic death, Salka grows into a fiercely
independent-minded adult - cutting off her hair, educating herself
and becoming an advocate for the town's working class. A
coming-of-age story, a feminist tale, a lament for Iceland's poor -
this is the funny, tender, epic story of Salka Valka. 'Laxness is a
poet who writes to the edges of the pages, a visionary who allows
us a plot' Daily Telegraph TRANSLATED BY PHILIP ROUGHTON
The third crime novel from international bestseller Yrsa
Sigurdardottir, ASHES TO DUST is tense, taut and terrifying - not
to be missed for fans of Nordic Noir. Thora peered at the floor,
but couldn't see anything that could have frightened Markus that
much, only three mounds of dust. She moved the light of her torch
over them. It took her some time to realize what she was seeing--
and then it was all she could do not to let the torch slip from her
hand. 'Good God,' she said. She ran the light over the three faces,
one after another. Sunken cheeks, empty eye-sockets, gaping mouths;
they reminded her of photographs of mummies she'd once seen in
National Geographic. 'Who are these people?' 'I don't know,' said
Markus . . . Bodies are discovered in one of the excavated houses
at a volcanic tourist attraction dubbed 'The Pompeii of the North'.
Markus Magnusson, who was only a teenager when the volcano erupted,
falls under suspicion and hires attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir to
defend him - but when his childhood sweetheart is murdered his case
starts to look more difficult, and the locals seem oddly reluctant
to back him up . . .
A chilling new case for Thora Gudmundsdottir, from Iceland's answer
to Stieg Larsson. When all contact is lost with two Icelanders
working in a harsh and sparsely populated area on the northeast
coast of Greenland, Thora is hired to investigate. Is there any
connection with the woman who vanished from the site some months
earlier? Why are the locals so hostile? And could one of the team
staying at the site with Thora be responsible for the
disappearances? Already an international bestseller, this fourth
book to feature Thora Gudmundsdottir ('a delight' - Guardian) is
chilling, unsettling and compulsively readable.
A creepy, compelling thriller, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME is the
fifth Thora Gudmundsdottir novel from Yrsa, 'Iceland's answer to
Stieg Larsson' (Daily Telegraph). A young man with Down's Syndrome
has been convicted of burning down his care home and killing five
people, but a fellow inmate at his secure psychiatric unit has
hired Thora to prove Jakob is innocent. If he didn't do it, who
did? And how is the multiple murder connected to the death of
Magga, killed in a hit and run on her way to babysit?
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