Sturla Jón Jónsson, the fifty-something building superintendent and sometimes poet, has been invited to a poetry festival in Vilnius, Lithuania, appointed, as he sees it, as the official representative of the people of Iceland to the field of poetry. His latest poetry collection, published on the eve of his trip to Vilnius, is about to cause some controversy in his home country—Sturla is publicly accused of having stolen the poems from his long-dead cousin, Jónas.

Then there’s Sturla’s new overcoat, the first expensive item of clothing he has ever purchased, which causes him no end of trouble. And the article he wrote for a literary journal, which points out the stupidity of literary festivals and declares the end of his career as a poet. Sturla has a lot to deal with, and that’s not counting his estranged wife and their five children, nor the increasingly bizarre experiences and characters he’s forced to confront at the festival in Vilnius …

A quirky novel that’s filled with insightful and wry observations about aging, family, love, and the mysteries of the hazelnut – a story about the criminal in all of us, the things we steal to be ourselves and the investigations we have to carry out to find out why we committed a crime.

• Nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize
• The Icelandic Booksellers’ Prize 2006
• Nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize 2006

REVIEWS

“Olafsson’s dark, delightful tale of an alcoholic Icelandic poet representing his country at a poetry festival in Lithuania brims with mordant commentary and beguiling narrative cul-de-sacs.
The book begins with one of many nods to Gogol as Sturla Jón Jónsson buys an expensive overcoat that he will promptly lose at the festival. Then the situation worsens: Sturla gets mixed up with a Salomé-inspired striptease gone wrong, is accused of plagiarizing in his latest book, gets harassed by a garlic-breath prostitute, and resorts, in a moment of desperation, to thievery.
Olafsson (The Pets) skillfully fills in Sturla’s dysfunctional family history while building up to the festival, then wastes no time in painting his protagonist into a corner once he gets there. The tension over how and whether Sturla will escape his comical problems is satisfying, as are Ólafsson’s sly observations about literary and Icelandic culture. If the eventual resolution feels too easy, there are enough discordant notes and painfully awkward situations to add depth and angst to this look into the messy calculus of life.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“In Bragi Olafsson’s work there’s a particularly strong sense of some kind of parallel perception of the world that is both fascinating and dangerous, even nightmarish at times. This sense for location and atmosphere is absolutely fascinating, there’s always something in the air, something just about to happen, some delicate tension that’s difficult to pinpoint is charging the ambient. In many cases the reader knows exactly what has happened, but the tension remains nevertheless.
The Ambassador … is, without doubt, Bragi Olafsson’s most significant work to date.”
THORGERDUR E. SIGURDARDOTTIR, BOKMENNTIR.IS

“The Ambassador is a highly amusing book, ironic and tragicomic, in the vein of all of Bragi’s works, which maintain a delicate balance between tragedy and comedy.”
GUDRUN LARA PETURSDOTTIR, KISTAN.IS