Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night

By Jón Kalman Stefánsson,

Book cover of Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night

Book description

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF THE ICELANDIC LITERATURE PRIZE

"The Icelandic Dickens" Irish Examiner

"Stefansson shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy" EILEEN BATTERSBY, T.L.S. Supplement

"A wonderful, exceptional writer . . . A timeless storyteller" CARSTEN JENSEN

"Sometimes, in small places, life becomes bigger"

Sometimes a distance from…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I read this book when I was in Iceland during its winter on a 3-month writing retreat. I was staying in the Westfjord’s in a town called Pingeri - population 200, which influenced my connection to the novel which is set in one of Iceland’s small, isolated towns and follows the lives of several residents.

It is both mundane and fantastical and philosophical. Written by an Icelandic author and translated into English, the story felt unique and highly distinctive of Icelandic culture. It’s a poetic, witty, slow-paced read, with some black humor that made me laugh out loud.

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