Winner of the 1990 Icelandic Literature Prize

Few Icelandic authors have mastered the concise art form of the short story as well as Svava Jakobsdóttir. Her stories provide a powerful insight into Icelandic reality and strangeness, while simultaneously reflecting the multifaceted experience and complex relationship between the individual and society. They highlight the vulnerability and loneliness of humanity and are filled with existential peril as well as a unique beauty.

In 12 Women (1965) & Under a Volcano (1990), Svava Jakobsdóttir showcases her iconic feminism and near-mythological voice, beginning with the sparse, classical nature of her earliest work to the more folkloric later pieces. Svava uses her spare prose and incisive observations to interrogate the mundane, probing the relationship between daily life and the sacred elements of being. In these stories, a mother succors her children in a series of gruesome sacrifices, a brother loses himself to the wiles of a mysterious entity, and the disembodied voice of the wind itself guides a young girl as she enters diaspora in a new country.

With an ephemeral undercurrent of folklore and myth, this collection captures the impermanence of experience and examines the many faces of the phases of life, from childhood to old age. Sleek, meditative, and bold, 12 Women & Under a Volcano celebrates Svava Jakobsdóttir’s talent for observation, her gentle wit, and her powerful insight.