Join us for a talk in our popular series Meet the Author. On February 13th, Icelandic author Kristín Eiríksdóttir will discuss her book A Fist or a Heart (Elín, ýmislegt). The talk is in conversation with translator Larissa Kyzer and moderated by Dr. Elizabeth DeNoma.
The past returns with a fury for a woman coming to terms with her life in this award-winning novel by an acclaimed Icelandic author making her English-language debut.
Elín Jónsdóttir lives an isolated existence in Reykjavík, Iceland, making props and prosthetics for theatrical productions and Nordic crime flicks. In her early seventies, she has recently become fascinated with another loner, Ellen Álfsdóttir, a sensitive young playwright and illegitimate daughter of a famous writer. The girl has aroused maternal feelings in Elín, but she has also stirred discomfiting memories long packed away. Because their paths have crossed before. One doesn’t remember. The other is about to forget.
Soon they’ll discover all they have in common: difficult childhoods, trauma, and being outliers who have found space to breathe in creative expression. Yet the more Elín tries to connect with the young woman and unbox painful memories, the more tenuous her grasp on reality becomes.
Winner of the Icelandic Literary Prize, A Fist or a Heart is a gripping, artfully interwoven novel of power, secrets, and isolation by one of the most bracing and original voices of the author’s generation.
The talk will be followed by a Q&A session moderated by Dr. Elizabeth DeNoma.
Cost: Free for Members; $5 general admission
About the author: Kristín Eiríksdóttir is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, poet, and playwright from Reykjavík, Iceland. Kristín has published eight books and had three plays staged. Her short fiction appeared in Best European Fiction 2011. Her novel Elín, ýmislegt, published in English as A Fist or a Heart, won the 2017 Icelandic Literary Prize as well as the 2018 Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize and was nominated for the 2019 Nordic Council Literature Prize. It is her first novel to be translated into English.
About the Translator: Larissa Kyzer is a writer and Icelandic literary translator. She was the fall 2019 Translator in Residence at Princeton, where she also teaches undergraduate workshops on literary translation. Larissa is co-chair of PEN America’s Translation Committee, and a member of Ós, an Iceland-based international literary collective, and the American Literary Translators Association. Her translation of Kristín Eiríksdóttir’s A Fist or a Heart won the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s 2019 translation prize. In her spare time, Larissa co-organizes the virtual Women+ in Translation reading series Jill! https://www.larissakyzer.com/
Join us for a talk in our popular series Meet the Author. On February 13th, Icelandic author Kristín Eiríksdóttir will discuss her book A Fist or a Heart (Elín, ýmislegt). The talk is in conversation with translator Larissa Kyzer and moderated by Dr. Elizabeth DeNoma.
The past returns with a fury for a woman coming to terms with her life in this award-winning novel by an acclaimed Icelandic author making her English-language debut.
Elín Jónsdóttir lives an isolated existence in Reykjavík, Iceland, making props and prosthetics for theatrical productions and Nordic crime flicks. In her early seventies, she has recently become fascinated with another loner, Ellen Álfsdóttir, a sensitive young playwright and illegitimate daughter of a famous writer. The girl has aroused maternal feelings in Elín, but she has also stirred discomfiting memories long packed away. Because their paths have crossed before. One doesn’t remember. The other is about to forget.
Soon they’ll discover all they have in common: difficult childhoods, trauma, and being outliers who have found space to breathe in creative expression. Yet the more Elín tries to connect with the young woman and unbox painful memories, the more tenuous her grasp on reality becomes.
Winner of the Icelandic Literary Prize, A Fist or a Heart is a gripping, artfully interwoven novel of power, secrets, and isolation by one of the most bracing and original voices of the author’s generation.
The talk will be followed by a Q&A session moderated by Dr. Elizabeth DeNoma.
Cost: Free for Members; $5 general admission
About the author: Kristín Eiríksdóttir is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, poet, and playwright from Reykjavík, Iceland. Kristín has published eight books and had three plays staged. Her short fiction appeared in Best European Fiction 2011. Her novel Elín, ýmislegt, published in English as A Fist or a Heart, won the 2017 Icelandic Literary Prize as well as the 2018 Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize and was nominated for the 2019 Nordic Council Literature Prize. It is her first novel to be translated into English.
About the Translator: Larissa Kyzer is a writer and Icelandic literary translator. She was the fall 2019 Translator in Residence at Princeton, where she also teaches undergraduate workshops on literary translation. Larissa is co-chair of PEN America’s Translation Committee, and a member of Ós, an Iceland-based international literary collective, and the American Literary Translators Association. Her translation of Kristín Eiríksdóttir’s A Fist or a Heart won the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s 2019 translation prize. In her spare time, Larissa co-organizes the virtual Women+ in Translation reading series Jill! https://www.larissakyzer.com/
