Herostories reveals tales untold by most history books: the harrowing journeys and vital triumphs of nineteenth - and twentieth century midwifery in the vast landscape of Iceland.

Composed from the memoirs and biographies of 100 Icelandic midwives, poet-historian Kristin Svava Tomasdottir's found poems illuminate the dangers and valor of birthwork. Forgoing traditional sagas of androcentric conquest, these poems center the adventures of ljosmaedur, "mothers of light." Tomasdottir leverages epic elements-dashing mountain treks, rivers forded on horseback, unyielding compassion-to challenge how and by whom stories become legend.

The follow-up to Tomasdottir and Thors' award-winning, PEN-nominated Stormwarning, Herostories documents the professional achievements of Iceland's first women to work outside the home, precursors to today's midwives who remain central to contemporary health care on the island.

Beyond archival recognition, the text's formally ambitious poetics render gender-based battles for literacy and education alongside narratives of selfless womanly caretaking, pressurizing the fundamental tensions between feminine self-actualization and the romanticized service of these trailblazing figures.

About the Author

Kristin Svava Tomasdottir is a poet and historian in Reykjavik, Iceland. She has published four books of poetry: Blotgaelur (2007), Skraelingjasyningin (2011), Stormvidvoerun (2015) and Hetjusoegur (2020), the latest one being awarded the Icelandic Womens Prize for Fiction. Stormvidvoerun was translated into English by K.B. Thors as Stormwarning and published in a bilingual edition in the United States by Phoneme Media in 2018. For her translation, Thors won the American-Scandinavian Foundation's Leif and Inger Sjoeberg Award and was longlisted for the PEN America Literary Award for translated poetry.

K.B. Thors is the author of Vulgar Mechanics (Coach House Books, 2019) and translator of Soledad Marambio's Chintungo: The Story of Someone Else (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017and Kristin Svava Tomasdottir's Stormwarning (Phoneme, 2018), winner of the American Scandinavian Foundation's Leif and Inger Sjoeberg Prize and nominee for the 2019 PEN Literary Award for Poetry in Translation.

Reviews

Winner of the American-Scandinavian Foundation's Leif and Inger Sjoeberg Award

Long-listed for the PEN Literary Award for Poetry in Translation

"Kristin Svava Tomasdottir has done the seemingly impossible: taken our contemporary capitalist culture, suffused with moralism as well as not-so-hidden prejudice, glorying in its achievements while squandering its wealth, and submitted it to critique while making us laugh at the whole thing." -Magdalena Kay, World Literature Today

Book Information
ISBN 9781646052288
Author Kristn Svava Tomasdottr
Format Paperback
Page Count 162
Imprint Deep Vellum Publishing
Publisher Deep Vellum Publishing