Heaven and Hell (ebook)

Description

Stefnsson shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy.Eileen Battersby,TLSIn a remote part of Iceland, a young man joins a cod-fishing crew, but when a tragedy occurs at sea, hes appalled by his fellow fishermens cruel indifference. Lost, broken by his experiences, he leaves the settlement in secret, his only purpose to return a book to a blind old sea captain who lives in a town beyond the mountainsand when he arrives, he finds that he isnt alone in his solitude: welcomed into a warm circle of outcasts, he begins to see the world anew.Heaven and Hellnavigates the depths of despair to celebrate the redemptive power of friendship. Set at the turn of the twentieth century, it is a reading experience as intense as the forces of the Icelandic landscape themselves.Praise forYour Absence is DarknessComparisons do not do justice to the complexity of Stefnssons book, nor the uniqueness of his prose, rendered here in a tumblingly beautiful translation by Philip Roughton.Daniel Mason,New York TimesStefansson uses the drama and comedy of everyday lives to dive into a broad range of topics: philosophy, music, faith, and even the science of earthworms.New York TimesLike fellow Scandinavian authors Jon Fosse and Karl Ove Knausgaard, Mr. Stefnsson joins plainspoken depictions of daily life to intimations of mysticism, creating a spectral, haunted atmosphere . . . Questioning, vulnerable and openly sentimental, this is an absorbing commemoration of what the author calls the paradox that rules our existence, the vivifying joy and paralyzing sorrow of loving another person.Sam Sacks,Wall Street JournalI couldnt put it down.Washington PostWhat makes this so irresistible is the narrators constant optimism as he probes profound questions from within the murk of his consciousness (Give me darkness, and then Ill know where the light is). Stefnsson is poised to make his mark on the world stage.Publishers Weekly(starred review)