A dodgy childhood friend and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a trapped bee in the highlands of Iceland, a desperate search for a new word for love, Duran Duran, birdsong, titillating romantic rendezvous in strange hotels … all this and much more in several short stories by Andri Snaer Magnason that come from different angles but share a strong sense of love and time.
In 1996 Andri Snaer published a very popular collection of short stories, and here we have a new collection by this unique voice of Icelandic literature.
https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2011-10/twenty-ninety-three/#ixzz3VOMYSq5W
REVIEWS
“In some ways, this brief tale is the antithesis of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead”, and that alone makes it well worth reading.”
NICHOLAS BURNS, WINNEPEG on Giantstone
“This short story, written by Andri Snær Magnason for our third print edition, follows an architect in Reykjavík grappling with the growing discord between his creativity and a capitalist reality. Laying bare the ways narratives of control and human supremacy can manifest in the physical objects we make, “Giantstone” asks us to consider what new stories could begin to shape our inner and outer worlds. Will we remain stuck in our humancentric philosophies, or will our art come to reflect a way of life that keeps and cares for the Earth?”
EMERGENCE MAGAZINE (on Giantstone)
“Love, in its various forms, is the subject of Andri Snær Magnason’s new short story collection, Sleep my love – a more personal work than the author’s previous efforts…
It could be said that love is lying dormant in a few of these stories, that it is actually asleep, as suggested by the book’s title. In one tale, love is reawakened in a novel way, surprising the reader at the end…
In the title story, Andri Snær critiques the devaluation and diminished meaning of many contemporary words, much as he did in Dreamland and No small stories. He slips seriousness into the narrator’s otherwise quaint search for new words to replace the obsolete “to love”, by having the nuclear threat of the past (and present?) dozing in the background. Although Wild Boys is the most memorable story in the collection, Legoland is the favourite of yours truly. The narrator’s distress dawns on him in a spectacular way as he sits in the place where he dreamed as a child, absent-mindedly building a black box out of the lego blocks he has always loved. He is not entirely sure about his wife, however.
Kristjan Hrafn Gudmundsson, Morgunbladid
“Sleep my love is unequivocally one of Andri Snær’s most personal and sincere books to date…
If the stories are viewed as a whole, they form the collected life story of a person in similar circumstances as the author. This life story touches upon various common issues that affect this particular generation – the struggle to put a roof over one´s head, to choose a career, and other such things. There are also issues that society has confronted, such as nature conservation, and that generation´s commercialization of greed which reached both its peak and its ethical low point during the economic boom of 2007…
There are many charming aspects to Andri Snær’s work. He has taken on urgent issues in his essays, allowed his potent imagination to reign in fiction for children and adults, and he engages with literature in various forms…
Well written, honest, and loosely connected stories form a strong whole.”
Magnús Guðmundsson, Frettabladid
“Sleep My Love is a very successful short story collection that I believe will only enhance Andri’s reputation.
Each story in the collection possesses its own character and strength, moving the reader with sensitivity, each releasing its hold at precisely the right moment.”
Gudmundur Vestmann, bokmenntir.is
