I'm always interested in fiction writers who do interesting things with the form of a story. One such writer is Icelandic, Jón Kalman Stefánsson. I loved his newly translated book, Your Absence Is Darkness. The form of the novel has taken on a pattern, musical and certainly poetic. The pattern isn't exactly repetition, but resonance. It's sort of like the difference between a metaphor becoming a transforming metaphor. Music is a part of the stories in this generational saga, since some of the characters are literary and some are musicians. Also, we do get to know what's on this author's Spotify channel, Death's Playlist.
I look forward to more of his works becoming available in English. His book The Fish Have No Feet was nominated for an International Book Prize 2016. Here's a quote from Heaven and Earth, due out in English translation in February 2025. I've borrow the quote from a book review of this upcoming novel.
“Some poems take us to places where no words reach, no thought, they take you up to the core itself, life stops for one moment and becomes beautiful, it becomes clear with regret and happiness. Some poems change the day, the night, your life. Some poems make you forget, forget the sadness, the hopelessness, you forget your waterproof, the frost comes to you, says, got you, and you’re dead.” (p.85).NYTimes Review of Your Absence is Darkness by Daniel Mason:https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/books/review/jon-kalman-stefansson-your-absence-is-darkness.html
Shortlist for the Booker Prize: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/fish-have-no-feet
Get the book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/your-absence-is-darkness/19657447?ean=9781771965811
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