Evil (2012)

Evil is a clear conversation with the present. It touches on an uncomfortable truth about ourselves.

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 2015