The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson

Longlisted for the European Prize for Literature, The Sorrow of Angels is the second book in the tragi-comic trilogy from Icelandic author Jón Kalman Stefánsson. It is a seemingly excellent translation from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton, who clearly has a deep understanding of the musicality of language.

Set against the backdrop of a devastating Icelandic winter, Stefánsson tells the story of a nameless boy who struggles to make his way through a desolate world of snow-laden poverty. The story is narrated by a collective consciousness of drowned natives – spirits trapped along the fjords and the rural coast – which lends the tale a mournful tone.

What is most striking about the novel is not the story, but the language: simple words are arranged in such a way that they become exquisite. Stefánsson uses lengthy sentences that in another author’s hands would be clumsy and unwieldy; but in his unusual prose they become so startlingly beautiful that the reader must pause every few pages to absorb them. His syntax is unconventional in a way that is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy: every paragraph is like a poem. [Rosie Hopegood]