{"title":"Books by Sjón","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781529355925","title":"Red Milk","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE SWEDISH ACADEMY'S NORDIC PRIZE 2023\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A book like a blade of light, searching out and illuminating the darkest corners of history . . . It's vivid, unputdownable, alive, and written with unerring artfulness and subtlety.' Neel Mukherjee\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGunnar Kampen grows up in Reykjavík during the Second World War in a household fiercely opposed to Hitler and Nazism. A caring brother and son, at nineteen he seems set to lead a conventional life. Yet in the spring of 1958, he founds a covert, anti-Semitic nationalist party with ties to a burgeoning international network of neo-Nazis - a cause that will take him on a clandestine mission to England from which he never returns.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this striking novel, inspired by one of the ringleaders of an Icelandic neo-Nazi group formed in the late 1950s, Sjón masterfully constructs the portrait of an ordinary young man who becomes a right-wing zealot. Exposing the roots of the far-right movements of today, \u003ci\u003eRed Milk\u003c\/i\u003e is a timely reminder that the seeds of extremism can be hard to detect and the allure of fascism remains dangerously potent.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43204664361138,"sku":"9781529355925","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529355925.jpg?v=1786023066"},{"product_id":"9781473663053","title":"CoDex 1962","description":"\u003cp\u003e'A masterpiece . . .  I challenge any author to top it!' Sigridur Alberstsdottir, Icelandic National Broadcasting Service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJósef Loewe enters the world as a lump of clay - carried in a hatbox by his Jewish father Leo, a fugitive in WWII Germany.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTaking refuge in a small-town guesthouse, Leo discovers a kindred spirit in the young woman who nurses him back to health and together they shape the clay into a baby. But en route to safety in Iceland, he is robbed of the ring needed to bring the child to life. It is not until 1962 that Jósef can be 'born', only to grow up with a rare disease. Fifty-three years on, it leads him into the hands of a power-hungry Icelandic geneticist, just when science and politics are threatening to lead us all down a dark, dangerous road.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt once playful and profoundly serious, this remarkable novel melds multiple genres into a unique whole: a mind-bending read and a biting, timely attack on nationalism.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56300379963765,"sku":"9781473663053","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781473663053_af2a82b5-c476-401c-b1a1-0e810f4addde.jpg?v=1786020672"},{"product_id":"9781529342994","title":"The Whispering Muse","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Funny, strange, provoking and disturbing; darkness with a light touch.' \u003ci\u003eTLS\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA master storyteller, Sjón weaves together Greek and Nordic myths with the legacies of the Second World War in this mesmerising novel, which reminds us that everything is capable of change.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eValdimar Haraldsson is an eccentric Icelander with dubious ideas about the relationship between fish consumption and Nordic superiority. To his delight, in the spring of 1949, he is invited to join a Danish merchant ship on its voyage to the Black Sea. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe is less delighted with the lack of fish on the menu. Worse, his fellow travellers show no interest in his 'Fish and Culture' lecture. They prefer the enthralling tales of the second mate, Caeneus, who every evening regales them with his adventures aboard the Argo, on Jason's legendary quest for the Golden Fleece.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302882718069,"sku":"9781529342994","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529342994_9797a5d4-da8a-4729-8199-ca22b904ea91.jpg?v=1786022469"},{"product_id":"9781529342970","title":"From the Mouth of the Whale","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE SWEDISH ACADEMY'S NORDIC PRIZE 2023\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A terrific read...an extraordinarily accomplished novel' \u003ci\u003eIndependent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Kaleidoscopic and mesmerising, comic and poignant' \u003ci\u003eTLS\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this magical evocation of a vanished age, a poet and self-taught healer is banished in 1635 to a barren island off Iceland - a place darkened by superstition, poverty and cruelty. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith only a purple sandpiper for company, Jónas Pálmason retraces his path to exile, recalling his exorcism of a walking corpse, the massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers and the deaths of three of his children. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut amid the cacophony of Copenhagen he will find hope and, finally, recognition of his enlightened ideas.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303266169205,"sku":"9781529342970","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529342970_8d0ba3ec-c850-40f8-9bef-cc0660b5ce43.jpg?v=1786022466"},{"product_id":"9781529342956","title":"The Blue Fox","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Enchantingly poetic . . . spellbinding . . . magical . . . exceptional' \u003ci\u003eIndependent \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn a stark Icelandic mountainside, the imposing Reverend Baldur Skuggason hunts an elusive blue vixen for her near-mythical pelt. The treacherous journey across snow and ice will push his physical and mental endurance to the limit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Baldur Skuggason's parish, a young woman with Down's Syndrome is buried. After being found shackled to the timbers of a shipwreck in 1868, she was rescued by the naturalist Fridrik B. Fridjonsson. Now he will open the package she always carried with her, hoping to solve the puzzle of her origins.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the ice begins to melt, the mystery surrounding the trio's connected fates is unravelled in this spellbinding fable, an exquisite tale of metamorphosis by one of Iceland's most acclaimed writers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'A magical novel' Björk\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Describes its world with brilliant, precise, concrete colour and detail... 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Asleep, he dreams in pictures, the threads of his own life weaving through the tapestry of the films he loves. When the Spanish flu epidemic comes ashore, killing hundreds of townspeople and forcing thousands to their sick beds, the shadows that linger at the edges of existence grow darker and Máni is forced to re-evaluate both the society around him and his role in it. Evoking the moment when Iceland's saga culture met the new narrative form of the cinema and when the isolated island became swept up in global events, this is the story of a misfit transformed by his experiences in a world where life and death, reality and imagination, secrets and revelations jostle for dominance.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57484196381045,"sku":"9781473613157","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781473613157_48649ffd-790c-4a68-93b1-feb0719f2446.jpg?v=1786266240"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-sjon.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}