The year is 1635. The earth is still at the centre of the universe, the chambers of the heart are two, birds hatch from seaweed, unicorn horns are in demand as luxury goods and stones are used as medicine. The artist and wordsmith Jonas Palmason the learned is sentenced for spreading the knowledge of witchcraft and sent into exile on a tiny islet, Gullbjarnarey, off the east coast of Iceland.

The novel From the Mouth of the Whale is based on the life and mental world of this self-educated Icelander who can be said to have incorporated the seventeenth century Iceland. It tells of the chilling aftermath of the Lutheran Reformation, the exorcism of a walking corpse in the remote county of Snæfjallastrond, secret Virgin Mary rituals, the massacre of Basque whalers in the western fjords and a family on the run in times when neighborly charity had become obsolete. In his exile Jonas the learned reflects on his life, and the reader follows him on his journey as he braces the storms of the heart and the mind in the age of From the Mouth of the Whale.

• Nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize 2008
• Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2012
• Shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2013