MISS ICELAND

by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

This charming book was one of the nicest surprises of my lockdown reading. I’ve never read a book set in 1960s Reykjavik before; it was a wonderfully atmospheric escape from the monotony of my own 5km radius. I picked it up expecting something sweet, quirky and funny. It was all of those things, but it was also intelligent and genuinely moving.

Miss Iceland’s protagonist, Hekla, is not in fact a contestant in a Scandinavian beauty pageant, but an aspiring writer who was named after one of Iceland’s most volatile volcanoes. When we meet her she’s on a bus, lugging her Remington typewriter towards a new life as a writer and poet in Iceland’s famously literary capital. The novel follows Hekla and two of her childhood friends – Jón John, a young gay man who works on the fishing boats while dreaming of becoming a costume designer, and Ísey a young housewife struggling with new motherhood – as they try to find a way to live creatively and truthfully in a city that is still finding its own place in the modern world.

Something a little bit different.

- Reviewed by Kat

Travel the world from the comfort of your armchair…