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The Blue Fox

A Novel

Sjón; Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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ISBN10: 0374114455
ISBN13: 9780374114459

Trade Paperback

128 Pages

$12.00

CA$16.00

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Set against the stark backdrop of the Icelandic winter, an elusive, enigmatic fox leads a hunter on a transformative quest. At the edge of the hunter's territory, a naturalist struggles to build a life for his charge, a young woman with Down syndrome whom he had rescued from a shipwreck years before. By the end of Sjón's slender, spellbinding fable of a novel, none of their lives will be the same. Winner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize—the Nordic world's highest literary honor—The Blue Fox is part mystery, part fairy tale, and the perfect introduction to a mind-bending, world-class literary talent.

Reviews

Praise for The Blue Fox

"Sjón is the trickster that makes the world, and he is achingly brilliant."—Junot Díaz



"Quirky, melodic, ticklish, seamlessly translated, lovingly polished."—David Mitchell

"[Sjón] is a magpie, taking myths and stories from disparate times and places, and weaving them together. The results are not whimsical—Sjón does not shy away from unpleasant truths, either in this world or the realms of myth—and there is a fierce intelligence behind the genial, seemingly rambling narratives."—Lucy Dallas, The Times Literary Supplement (London)

"When I need something epic and lyrical I call upon Sjón . . . The Blue Fox is a magical novel."—Björk

"The Blue Fox describes its world with brilliant, precise, concrete colour and detail . . . Comic and lyrical."—A. S. Byatt, The Times (London)

"Enchantingly poetic . . . Spellbinding . . . Magical . . . Exceptional . . . Require[s] that one use the loose descriptive ‘thriller' too."—Nuruddin Farah, The Independent

"[The Blue Fox is] Sjón's breakthrough work . . . [A] taut, poetic and beautifully judged fable."—Carolyne Larrington, The Times Literary Supplement (London)

Reviews from Goodreads

BOOK EXCERPTS

Read an Excerpt

I
(JANUARY 9–11, 1883)


Blue foxes are so curiously like stones that it is a matter for wonder. When they lie beside them in winter there is no hope of telling them apart from the rocks themselves; indeed, they're far...

About the author

Sjón; Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

Born in Reykjavík in 1962, Sjón is the author of the novels The Blue Fox, The Whispering Muse, From the Mouth of the Whale, Moonstone, and CoDex 1962, for which he won several awards, including the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize and the Icelandic Literary Prize. He has also been short-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and his work has been translated into thirty-five languages.

In addition, Sjón has written more than seven poetry collections, several opera librettos, and lyrics for various artists, including Björk. He was nominated for an Oscar for his lyrics in Dancer in the Dark, and he cowrote the script of the film The Northman with its director, Robert Eggers. In 2017 he became the third writer – following Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell – to contribute to Future Library, a public artwork based in Norway spanning one hundred years.

He lives in Reykjavík, Iceland.

Sjón