Margó Olvasókör Extra: Jón Kalman Stefánsson
"I looked out of the window and my so-called wisdom shrank like a beanstalk and the world grew bigger. Doors appeared in the walls, questions in the answers, miracles in the everyday."
Jón Kalman Stefánsson: Trenches in the Rain (Jelenkor, 2024, translated by Veronika Egyed)
Are you a fan of Stefánsson's books and wondering how his writing career began, what inspired his first novel and what he thinks of it today?
Now is your time!
Jón Kalman Stefánsson is coming to Hungary as a guest of honour at the Budapest International Book Festival and we invited him to answer readers' questions and talk about his book, Ark in the Rain, published in the spring, in an extraordinary Margó Reading Circle.
Anna Ott and László Valuska will be in conversation with the author, the event will be in English with interpretation.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Schedule
ABOUT THE BOOK
"Sam and Starkadur sat on the slope above Tunga, watching the clouds float away laden with drizzling raindrops, listening to hear the sniffle when the clouds let out the rain, then sat for a long time watching the drizzle in the rain. Finally they stood up, took off their boots, ran across the grass to the house, brought a thermos of coffee and mugs, two slices of bread with cheese, waded through the mower, it's magical to drink coffee barefoot in the grass while your head is getting pounded by the rain. That's what rainy days are like in these parts."
In his first collection of prose, published in 1996, Jón Kalman Stefánsson takes us to the landscapes of Iceland's western fjords. His loosely connected short stories depict the unreal everyday lives of the locals, set on the borderland between technology and wonder. Around here, a car appears on the horizon, or Björn's new baler arrives; neighbours follow a runaway bull through binoculars; a lonely farmer mourns a trolless who turns into a steed in the day; or a farmer, under the weight of the silence of the fjords, begins to hear the clouds rustle like dry hay and creak as the mountain peak splits them in two.
With a wry smile, Stefánsson twirls the most typical trifles of reality in his hands, until they unravel into the pains and dramas we all know. And then we pause and ask ourselves the question, "is there anything sadder than the trenches in the rain?"
❗️Könyvvásárlásra and book signing the next day (28/09) at the Book Festival!
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