'Ólafsdóttir's specialty is the small journeys we take to save ourselves and the ones we care for. She is the heart's finest map-maker' Sjón
Winner of the Icelandic Literature Prize.
Jónas feels like his life is over.
His wife has left him, his mother is slipping deeper into dementia, and his daughter is no longer who he thought. So he comes up with a foolproof plan: to buy a one-way ticket to a chaotic,war-ravaged country and put an end to it all.
But on arriving at Hotel Silence, he finds his plans - and his anonymity - begin to dissolve under the foreign sun. Now there are other things that need his attention, like the crumbling hotel itself, the staff who run it, and his unusual fellow guests. And soon it becomes clear that Jónas must decide whether he really wants to leave it all behind; or give life a second chance, albeit down a most unexpected path...
'Humane, eccentric and bleakly funny' --Sunday Times
'Ólafsdóttir's writing is at once profoundly Icelandic... and universal... her authorial voice is immediate and intimate' --Financial Times
'Bizarre, black humour can be a good thing, as Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir's fifth novel proves... For fans of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen' --Independent, Best New Novels for 2018
About the Author
AUÐUR AVA ÓLAFSDÓTTIR is a prize-winning novelist, playwright and poet. Her novels have been translated into 33 languages, and have won the Nordic Council Literature Prize, the Icelandic Literary Prize, the Prix Médicis Étranger and the Icelandic Bookseller's Prize. She lives in Reykjavík.
BRIAN FITZGIBBON translates from Italian, French and Icelandic. Recent translations include Woman at 1000 Degrees by Hallgrímur Helgason as well as Hotel Silence and Miss Iceland by Auður Ava
Ólafsdóttir.
