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The Whispering Muse

Winner of the Swedish Academy's Nordic Prize 2023

By: Sjon

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Paperback | 16 April 2020 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
114 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.3 x 13 x 19.8

Paperback

$29.75

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A reissue of Sjon's masterful, award-winning novel

The year is 1949 and Valdimar Haraldsson, an eccentric Icelander with elevated ideas about the influence of fish consumption on Nordic civilisation, has had the singular good fortune to be invited to join a Danish merchant ship on its way to the Black Sea.

Among the crew is the mythical hero Caeneus, disguised as the second mate. Every evening after dinner he entrances his fellow travellers with the tale of how he sailed with the fabled vessel the Argo on the Argonauts' quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

A master storyteller, Sjon seamlessly blends seafaring yarns of the ancient world with the manners of the modern age.

About the Author

Born in Reykjavik in 1962, Sjon is an Icelandic writer whose novels The Blue Fox, The Whispering Muse, From the Mouth of the Whale, Moonstone and CoDex 1962 have been translated into thirty-five languages. He has won several awards including the Nordic Council's Literature Prize for The Blue Fox and has also been shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, while Moonstone won the Icelandic Literary Prize and the Icelandic Booksellers' prize for Novel of the Year.

Sjon has also published nine poetry collections, written four opera librettos as well as lyrics for various artists, and was nominated for an Oscar for his lyrics in the film Dancer in the Dark. In 2017, Sjon became the third writer - following Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell - to contribute to Future Library, a public artwork based in Norway spanning 100 years. He lives in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Industry Reviews

Funny, strange, provoking and disturbing; darkness with a light touch. - Times Literary Supplement

'Sjon pulls off the difficult task of creating an unboring bore with panache. Not only that, he allows a twist at the end that changes our perspective...He has changed the way I see things.' - A. S. Byatt, New York Review of Books

'Sublime . . . A work of coy humor and shape-shifting magic.' - Wall Street Journal

A quirky, melodic, ticklish, seamlessly-translated, lovingly-polished gem of a novel. Sjon's work deserves space on any self-respecting bookshelf of European fiction. - David Mitchell

Once again, Sjon has chosen an unusual subject, interwoven the fantastical with the ordinary, and produced a complex and strangely compelling work of fiction. - Huffington Post

An extraordinary, powerful fable - a marvel. - Alberto Manguel

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