Island

Reviews / Votes

One of the most special books I've read in years. Absolutely gorgeous and intimate. It took me away -- Jami Attenberg, author of THE MIDDLESTEINS 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. -- Jon Kalman Stefansson Talks about places as if they were people, of fjords as if they were the wrinkles of our souls -- Valeria Parrella * Grazia * A fictional history of a family's connection to the Faroe Islands over three generations... captures well the tension between wanting to belong and resisting conformity * Irish Times * Conjures imagery as startling and original as the Faroese landscape, refreshing as an Atlantic breeze and dark as the eddying tides that course through the narrows. The restlessness and heartache of the exile are universal, and the hunger to belong will ring true for anyone with family ties to another country -- Tim Ecott, author of The Land of Maybe: A Faroe Islands Year A sensitive meditation on belonging * Kirkus Reviews * A 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. Lush, lyrical prose transports the reader -- Blackwell's, Bookseller Review An ode to the legends we still need * La Repubblica * Dense and evocative, and manages to combine organic and lifeless matter with the fantastic * Wired.it * There are memories of events we never lived but that belong to us nevertheless. It's the family memories, told in silent moments which are full of meaning. Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen, whose grandparents come from the Faroe Islands, has many of those memories and she tells them with a prose that is as deep as the sea surrounding everything (and everyone) -- Nathascia Severgnini * Corriere della Sera * Spare but dazzling prose: the reader is literally transported within a world which seems suspended in time, a natural fortress in which even the fjords and the leaves of grass have a soul -- Laura Savarino * L'Indice *