Girl with a Head (2015)

“He taught me to stick to my guns and get angry so that I wanted to break free from my chains. That’s the thrill—what makes life exciting. To sin and break free of your chains and suffer the punishment. It’s a line dance on an awful line, to want to stand at the boundaries and stretch them out so that the world might change for the better. To muddle along and be happy in a world where almost no one can be.”

In Girl with a Head, Thorunn relates what it was like growing up in Reykjavik’s rock ‘n roll and hippie era, including her parents’ difficult divorce, which dampened her youthful happiness for a time, the freedom of student life in Sweden and Mexico, communes, lovers, and a colorful cast of fellow travellers. This candid narrative interweaves heartache and happiness, gaiety and deep regret.

Girl with a Head is a stand-alone continuation of Girl with a Finger and Girl with a Belly, in which Thorunn uses historical documents to poetically relate the lives of her mother and foremothers.

Both of these books earned great praise from critics as well as various other recognitions.