Liberation January 26, 2024 , by Claire Devarrieux
The tremors of an Iceland frozen in time.
A simpleton with calf teeth, an ogress with sooty wrinkles, a forehead adorned with a purulent pimple: faces and beautiful characters appear in the spacious novel by Hallgrimur Helgason , an Icelandic writer and painter, born in 1959. But if we had to present a single secondary character, we would choose old Grandvör, who has not said a word since she was taken in by her daughter and her son-in-law, a carpenter, poet and pagan. Her own farm was thrown into the sea by an avalanche. She was not at home "when the mountain gave birth with a deafening noise of snow."