Evil (2012)
Winner — The Icelandic Literary Prize 2012
Winner — The Icelandic Bookseller Prize for the best novel 2012
Winner — Prix Transfuge du meilleur roman Scandinave
2012
540 pages
Fiction
Evil is a clear conversation with the present. It touches on an uncomfortable truth about ourselves.
The momentum of world history: Agnes Lukauskas and Omar Arnarson meet early one piercingcold Sunday morning in the taxi queue in the centre of Reykjavik. Three years later Omar burns their house to the ground, drives to Keflavik, and abandons the country by plane. The story actually begins long before then, in the summer of 1941, when half of the residents of the small Lithuanian town of Jurbarkas are slaughtered in the surrounding forest. Two of Agnes’ great-grandfathers were in the massacre – one shot the other – and three generations later Agnes has made the holocaust the centre point of her own life.vHer obsession leads her to Arnor, a literate Neo-Nazi. Evil is about the holocaust and about love, about Iceland and Lithuania, about Agnes who becomes lost in herself while the Icelandic ambassador in Lithuania acknowledges the independence of the Baltic countries and Lithuanian criminals begin operating from Reykjavik, about Agnes who doesn’t know whether she is a fan of the BRanking World Champions in Handball or of Bogdan Kowalczyk, about Agnes who loves Omar who loves Agnes who loves Arnor. • The Icelandic Literary Prize 2012 • The Icelandic Bookseller Prize for the best novel of 2012 • Nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2013 • Prix Transfuge du meilleur roman Scandinave • Shortlisted for the Prix Médicis étranger 2015 • Nominated for the Prix du meilleur roman étranger 2015 • Nominated for the Prix Médicis étranger 2015Evil (2012)
Evil is a clear conversation with the present. It touches on an uncomfortable truth about ourselves.
Reviews
A very, very important author has emerged.
LIVRES HEBDO, FRANCE
Norddahl is a virtuoso.
MARIE CLAIRE, FRANCE
Evil is a marvellous novel. ... There are countless ways to address the present and mourn the past, but the way in which Evil does so completely unnerved me. ... What will become of the modern novel now, following this book? Evil is a novel that is truly one of a kind. It is the modern novel. ... It is as tremendous as the works of Sofi Oksanen. ... Evil is a unique novel.
ELISABETH HJORTH, SVENSKA DAGBLADET, SWEDEN
Take My Struggle 6 by Karl Ove Knausgårds along with Purge by Sofi Oksanen, add Reykjavík and you get Evil.
BO BJÖRNVIG, WEEKENDAVISEN, DENMARK
Eirikur Orn Norddahl has written a cruel, sometimes cruelly funny book about how ideology and history permeates our most intimate spheres. Evil.
SPIEGEL ONLINE, GERMANY
So masterfully done, original and cool that it’s frightening … Crazy book! Read it! ... Informative, entertaining, sad and funny. It combines history, love story, philosophical pondering and humour ...
THORUNN HREFNA SIGURJONSDOTTIR, FRETTABLADID DAILY
One of the strongest messages of the book is that to let oneself be passively borne with the currents, to perpetually shy away from confrontation or to stand as a transfixed onlooker can also constitute violence against others. … This love story from modern-day Reykjavik is used to lead us through that part of Europe’s past that we find most difficult to address.
AUDUR ADALSTEINSDOTTIR AND ASTA GISLADOTTIR, SPASSIAN
A major work in every sense ... very strong impact ... masterly well written ... kept me in its grip ...
FRIDRIKA BENONYSDOTTIR, KILJAN/ICELANDIC NATIONAL BROADCASTING SERVICE
Smashing ... Really great book any way you look at it ... magnificent work ... constant tension ...
EGILL HELGASON, KILJAN/ICELANDIC NATIONAL BROADCASTING SERVICE
The story told in Evil is as extensive as a Thomas Mann novel, and has the same kind of epic progression. ... I have only the highest praise for this novel with its unbridled, yet clear, structure. I am whole-heartedly impressed by it.
THOMAS THURAH, INFORMATION, DENMARK
When Eirikur Orn Norddahl writes a novel, you have to hold on to your hat. It is full of a tremendous pressure and enormous power which sucks the reader in. ... This is at least three novels condensed into one. ... I am extremely impressed by the quick and clever phrasing. Evil is a scintillating novel about life as a whole – everything that is difficult and strange about being human.
MIA GERDIN, SVERIGES RADIO/KULTURNYTT, SWEDEN
Evil is twisted, crazy, stubborn, cheekily good. If you appreciate the kind of literature that is completely different from anything else you might know, then you need to read Evil.
DENGLERS-BUCHKRITIK, GERMANY
Fascism has no sense of irony, it says somewhere, and irony must therefore prove a useful tool in the struggle against it. You want to believe that at any rate after reading Evil, but even if it is not the case, certainly here is a beautiful and expansive novel, a tremendous feat I must say, about injured people wandering around an ailing world in all its misery – and splendour.
BJORN UNNAR VALSSON, BOKMENNTIR.IS
The best book of the year.
ATHENS VOICE, GREECE
Awards
Won
- The Icelandic Literary Prize 2012
- The Icelandic Bookseller Prize for the best novel 2012
- Prix Transfuge du meilleur roman Scandinave
Shortlisted
- Prix Médicis étranger 2015
Nominated
- Nordic Council Literature Prize 2013
- Prix du meilleur roman étranger 2015
Rights Sold
Translation rights sold
CroatiaNaklada OceanMore
DenmarkOrdenes By
FranceÉditions Métailié
Germany/Austria/Switzerland/LuxembourgKlett-Cotta
GreecePolis
MacedoniaArt Connect
SpainHoja de Lata
SwedenRámus