This is Gerdur Kristny's third collection from Arc and the third of the trilogy which already comprises the highly-acclaimed Bloodhoof and Drapa. In all three poetic sequences, the poet employs the archaic form of the saga to conjure up razor-sharp dark and bewildering images of the fates of women in a world where the boundaries between life and death and what lies beyond are unclear. In this particular sequence, Gerdur Kristny gives a voice to a woman whose story was one that society was not ready to hear at the time, a woman who was abused as a child but who committed suicide before her own account of what had taken place was published. At its heart is the very notion of articulation, of how our language and culture determine what stories we can tell and what words we can use.

About the Author
Gerdur Kristny is a phenomenally energetic Icelandic writer, having produced 18 books of fiction and non-fiction prose, as well as children's books and poetry, in the 18 years since the appearance of her first. She has won numerous prizes and awards, from the Icelandic Journalism Award in 2005 to the Icelandic Literature Prize in 2010 for Bloodhoof. She says she chooses each word of her poetry carefully so rarely needs to revise and it certainly shows in this volume. Rory McTurk graduated from Oxford in 1963, took a further degree at the University of Iceland, Reykjavik in 1965, and after teaching at the universities of Lund and Copenhagen, and then University College, Dublin, took up a post at Leeds University in 1978. In addition to his two authored books, Studies in Ragnars Saga Lodbrokar and its Major Scandinavian Analogues (Oxford, 1991) and Chaucer and the Norse and Celtic Worlds (Aldershot, 2005), he has edited the Blackwell Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture (Oxford, 2004), and co-edited, with Andrew Wawn, a volume of essays, Ur Doelum til Dala (Leeds, 1989) in commemoration of the Icelandic scholar Gudbrandur Vigfusson (1827-89). He has also contributed five edited texts to A New Introduction to Old Norse, Part II, Reader (5th edition, ed. Anthony Faulkes, London, 2011). His publications also include two Icelandic saga translations, two book-length translations of scholarly works on Icelandic topics (one from Swedish, the other from Icelandic), numerous essays and articles in journals, and a translation (published in 2007) of an Icelandic novel, The Thief of Time, by Steinunn Sigurdardottir (Reykjavik, 1986).


Book Information
ISBN 9781910345016
Author Gerdur Kristny
Format Paperback
Page Count 104
Imprint Arc Publications
Publisher Arc Publications