Jakobina Sigurdardottir’s novel The Noose garnered a great deal of attention upon its release in 1968. The story is a monologue – or, rather, a dialogue in which one participant’s voice is inaudible – a unique narrative structure in Icelandic literature.

We find ourselves in an undefined future. Heavy industry dominates the economy and the country has been flooded by capital and workers from abroad. The novel’s sharp satire is perhaps most clearly revealed in the character of the narrator, a sweeper in a factory; his words, opinions, and reactions. He tells his own story as well as that of the nation, beginning with the arrival of a foreign army during the war andthe social changes this brought about, relating history up until the events of the novel. Has this time perhaps already come?

“This is a remarkable book …
absolutely masterful.”
KILJAN, NATIONAL TV

“Jakobina was of course an absolutely
incomparable writer; the fact that she
wasn’t granted her rightful place as
one of Iceland’s most important 20th
century writers, that’s very simply
because she was a woman on a farm
up north…she wasn’t posh enough for
the literary pack in Reykjavik.”
KILJAN, NATIONAL TV