101 Reykjavik (1996)
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101 Reykjavik (1996)

1996
383 pages
Fiction

101 Reykjavik (1996)

Hlynur Bjorn is an unemployed 30-something loner, still living with his mum, who spends his days on the Internet, watching satellite TV, and gazing at girls in the pub. But Hlynur's cosy, unthreatening world is shaken when his mother comes out as a lesbian, and her Spanish girlfriend Lolla moves into their home. 101 Reykjavik is a first-person account of a blackly funny and bizarre love triangle, a dark, comic tale of perverse sexuality and slacker culture in Iceland's trendy capital city that pokes fun along the way at such foibles of our culture as CNN weather reports and porn videos.

The book was turned into a successful movie in the year 2000, directed by Baltasar Kormakur and starring Hilmir Snaer Gudnason and Victoria Abril.

Reviews

… deeply entertaining … side-splittingly funny. You have to read it. … He has done the best thing possible: found a new way of telling.

THE GUARDIAN

Bukowski of the north.

LA REPUBLICA

The man can wail like some young Arctic Philip Roth.

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

Imagine if Henry Miller had written Tropic of Cancer on crack instead of wine.

TIM SANDLIN, AMERICAN NOVELIST

101 Reykjavik is a realistic novel in which the existential problems of modern man are depicted with Hamlet as a model.

NORDIC LITERATURE 2001

The main character is the everlasting partyanimal, as are Nick Hornby's characters and the world described in the book ... reminds of Irvine Welsh and his Trainspotting.

TURUN PÄIVÄLEHTI, FINLAND

You will read the book non-stop, not least because of its amusingly conceived leitmotifs …

VENERDI, SUPPLEMENT TO LA REPUBLICA

A superbly unique gem amongst the modern canon of Icelandic books.

WILL HEATH, BOOKSANDBAO.COM

The most irritating thing about the Icelander Hallgrimur Helgason's novel 101 Reykjavik is that it is so damned well written.

SYDSVENSKA DAGBLADET, SWEDEN

Awards

Nominated

  • Nordic Council Literature Prize 1999

Rights Sold

Translation rights sold

DenmarkRosinante
FinlandOtava
FranceActes Sud
GermanyKlett-Cotta
HungaryScolar
ItalyUgo Guanda
KoreaDulnyouk Publishing Co
LatviaValters & Ropa
Macedonia
NorwayDamm
PolandArtRage (updated translation)
RomaniaUniversla Dalsi Publishers
RussiaAzboka
Serbia
SpainRBA
SwedenNorstedts
The NetherlandsMeulenhoff
UKFaber & Faber
USScribner