Set in the poorest, coldest and darkest country in Europe at the turn of the 20th century, when life during winter was one endless quarantine, Sixty Kilos of Sunshine boils the life of a nation down to one small village and the destiny of one individual.

Eilifur Gudmundsson returns from the week-long trip to the nearest town to the remote Segulfjord, where he farms with his family, to find nothing but an empty whiteness of snow that has covered everything from the innermost waterfall to the ocean’s edge. Beneath the avalanche, his family lie buried in their home, and it is only the lowing of their cow that guides him to the spot above the farmhouse. Eilífur digs down to find that only his infant son, Gestur, has survived, drinking milk from the cow’s udders.

So begins the story of Gestur, whose coming of age is also the story of the birth of a nation. After a failed attempt to emigrate to America, and the loss of his father while shark fishing, Gestur finds himself living in luxury in a nearby town under the care of the shark boat’s owner, then sent back to the poverty of the fjord, before escaping aboard a French fishing vessel. The magnetic pull of the fjord drags him back, though, and it isn’t long before the Norwegians arrive, and with them the future, as the herring boom brings Iceland—and Gestur— into the modern age.

This is a book both timeless and timely, an ode to a nation – and yet very international – set against the breathtaking beauty of the peaks, fjords and snows of Iceland as its people move from oars to engines, from oppression to opportunity.

• The Icelandic Literary Prize 2019
• The best book of 2020, according to Kieler Nachrichten, Germany
• The Icelandic Audio Book Award 2021

“A direct literary descendent of Halldor Laxness, Hallgrimur Helgason has written one of the most profoundly beautiful and wildly ambitious novels of the 21st century.
Sixty Kilos of Sunshine has been hailed as a masterpiece and takes on the history and hardship of the Icelandic people, but it also tells the visceral and moving story of a boy who must, as we all must, find his own particular way of survival in this harsh world. It is a glorious and thrilling achievement.”
LILY KING, AMERICAN AWARD WINNING AUTHOR OF EUPHORIA AND FATHER OF THE RAIN

“[Helgason] delivers a moving historical fresco with Sixty Kilos of Sunshine, a powerful and generous poetic work. Epic … [Helgason]is a formidable storyteller who cultivates a bitingly sarcastic irony … Sixty Kilos of Sunshine is a testament of love, an act of resilience, and great generosity … a poetic work.”
MOHAMED BERKANI, FRANCE INFO

“The true challenge of this novel from the cold is to take your time with it, savoring each page slowly and deeply.”
BRIGITTE FERRAND, EUROPE

4 stars out of 5
★★★★
“Sixty Kilos of Sunshine has the virtues of a great literary saga, teeming with characters … [a] novel […] like an Icelandic evening when the sun does not want to set … Highly recommended.”
ÉRIC ATTIC, BENZINE MAGAZINE

“A Rabelaisian Spirit … the great success of the novel lies especially in its gallery of vividly colored heroes. A multitude of characters with crazy charm, worthy of a wacky folklore, or even a Rebelaisian spirit, contribute, each in the own way, to illustrate the country’s emancipation … With a keen sense of the sensual, Helgason draws his reader like a magnet into these adventures and their sublime nature.”
ARIANE SINGER, LE MONDE

“Like all great works of literature, this novel both speaks to our inner life as well as the world as a whole. While being a true mirror to the past times it describes, it is ageless at the same time. A social and psychological melting pot that churns and cracks, like a fjord full of herring. Conclusion: This book is a masterpiece.”
OLINA THORVARDARDOTTIR, FRETTABLADID DAILY

“Big literature from a small country!”
DENIS SCHECK, DRUCKFRISH, GERMAN LITERARY TV PROGRAMME

“… easily compares with the big American epic writers like William Gaddis, Don DeLillo and Jonathan Franzen.”
ABENDZEITUNG MÜNCHEN

“Humourous and imaginative with a great eye for poetic moments.”
KIELER NACHRICHTEN

“Sixty Kilos of Sunshine is a big feat. One can even say “a big catch”, with the scene in mind, where the freshly landed herring sparkle in the sun, so they almost appear to be sunshine itself.”
DEUTSCHLANDFUNK KULTUR

4.5 stars out of 5
“A powerful and unforgettable novel. …
a grand turn-of-the-century novel set around the year 1900, based on a firm historical foundation. Still, the freedom of fiction reigns from page one, when the poor farmer Eilífur Gudmundsson walks onto the empty stage and glances over his Segulfjord; an endless field of snow, like an empty page that is ready for the author to write on, and at the same time brings the Genesis to mind. Not only is there a new century coming, but also a symbolic millenium, for now there are 999 years since the fjord was first settled by men; there are changes in the air. At the end of the book we take a look at the same stage, that then sports new and impressive scenery. Hallgrimur’s saga is the thing that happens in between, in the space of fifteen years or so.
… About Hallgrimur’s ability to create characters no words are needed, there is plenty of people here, full of life and quite unforgettable …
As before, Hallgrimur’s writing style is rich and excessive, but here this device works better than often before. The prose is simply great at times, full of visual scenes, surprising and original, so that the reader can dwell on the page for a good while, and a slow reading of this book is highly recommended. The author has made his language old and archaic, according to the times he is writing about, and the pages are crowded with strong and entertaining lines, this is extremely well done.”
HILDIGUNNUR THRAINSDOTTIR, MORGUNBLADID DAILY

“In the US they have a term called “The Great American Novel”, a novel that captures American history in such a grand way that people see it anew, and it is said that every American writer dreams of writing such a book. Sixty Kilos of Sunshine by Hallgrimur Helgason is such a book. This is our big story. This is Hallgrimur’s Icelandic saga. In my opinion he has not written a better book. Here he meets us in full bloom as an author, with all his qualities fully cultivated. 
… Never before has Hallgrimur Helgason cared more for his characters than in this book, and this maybe explains why he has managed to write a masterpiece…”
GUDMUNDUR ANDRI THORSSON WRITER

“… a fascinating journey into a strange world … ”
REALTIME, TATARSTAN/RUSSIA