Sixty Kilos of Sunshine (2018)

“[Helgason] delivers a moving historical fresco with Sixty Kilos of Sunshine, a powerful and generous poetic work. Epic ... [Helgason]is a formidable storyteller who cultivates a bitingly sarcastic irony ... Sixty Kilos of Sunshine is a testament of love, an act of resilience, and great generosity ... a poetic work.”

“A Rabelaisian Spirit ... the great success of the novel lies especially in its gallery of vividly colored heroes. A multitude of characters with crazy charm, worthy of a wacky folklore, or even a Rebelaisian spirit, contribute, each in the own way, to illustrate the country's emancipation ... With a keen sense of the sensual, Helgason draws his reader like a magnet into these adventures and their sublime nature.”

“… easily compares with the big American epic writers like William Gaddis, Don DeLillo and Jonathan Franzen.”

4.5 stars out of 5 “A powerful and unforgettable novel. ... a grand turn-of-the-century novel set around the year 1900, based on a firm historical foundation. Still, the freedom of fiction reigns from page one, when the poor farmer Eilífur Gudmundsson walks onto the empty stage and glances over his Segulfjord; an endless field of snow, like an empty page that is ready for the author to write on, and at the same time brings the Genesis to mind. Not only is there a new century coming, but also a symbolic millenium, for now there are 999 years since the fjord was first settled by men; there are changes in the air. At the end of the book we take a look at the same stage, that then sports new and impressive scenery. Hallgrimur’s saga is the thing that happens in between, in the space of fifteen years or so. … About Hallgrimur’s ability to create characters no words are needed, there is plenty of people here, full of life and quite unforgettable … As before, Hallgrimur’s writing style is rich and excessive, but here this device works better than often before. The prose is simply great at times, full of visual scenes, surprising and original, so that the reader can dwell on the page for a good while, and a slow reading of this book is highly recommended. The author has made his language old and archaic, according to the times he is writing about, and the pages are crowded with strong and entertaining lines, this is extremely well done.”