Gyda is temporarily living with her son Solvi. Her husband has passed away and she deeply misses her daughter, Svava, whom she has neither seen nor heard from for decades. During the day, she is accompanied by Elena, a young woman from a distant country, although Gyda feels as if the young woman is guarding her like a prisoner. However, Gyda is cunning and sometimes  scapes Elena’s watchful eyes. On one such day Gyda runs into Onundur, her former lover who betrayed her long ago, and she can no longer flee the past. In the story, Gyda sails the channels of memory searching for answers. What had gone so terribly wrong and why?

This is a story of memories and forgetfulness, a story of reckoning to the beat of the kitchenware revolution that took place in Iceland following the collapse of the Icelandic banking system in 2008.

• Nominated for the DV Prize for Literature 2012

Chapters in English available