About the Size of the Universe

Author(s): Jon Kalman Stefansson

Novel | Iceland | Translated fiction | Fiction Reductions

A modern saga spanning the whole of the 20th century, by one of Iceland's most celebrated writers.


At the beginning of this story there is death, and yet it is a celebration of life - the lives of many generations of Ari's family - of the passion between a man and a woman, forbidden love, violence, sorrow, betrayal. Happiness and misfortune are passed down from one generation to the next - the sorrow over what was and what might have been weighs heavily on the characters - and at the end of this chain, for now, stands Ari, on his way to his dying father, with a score still to be settled. The raw beauty of life is written into the dramatic Icelandic landscape, and into a society that has undergone great transformation within a century.


In language both archaic and lyrical, and yet entirely contemporary and refreshingly full of humour, Jon Kalman Stefansson proves himself to be one of the finest European writers of his generation.A companion volume to Fish Have No Feet (longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017).Translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton

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Powerful and sparkling . . . Prize-winning translator Philip Roughton's feather-light touch brings out the gleaming, fairy-tale quality of the writing -- Nora Mahoney * Irish Times * A wonderful, exceptional writer . . . A timeless storyteller. -- Carsen Jensen Stefansson's prose rolls and surges with oceanic splendour. -- Boyd Tonkin * Spectator. *

Jon Kalman Stefansson's novels have been nominated three times for the Nordic Council Prize for Literature and his novel Summer Light, and then Comes the Night received the Icelandic Prize for Literature in 2005. In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious P.O. Enquist Award. He is perhaps best known for his trilogy - Heaven and Hell, The Sorrow of Angels (longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize) and The Heart of Man (winner of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize) - and for Fish Have No Feet (longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017).

General Fields

  • : 9780857056009
  • : Quercus Publishing
  • : MacLehose Press
  • : 0.36
  • : February 2018
  • : 216mm X 135mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : February 2018
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Jon Kalman Stefansson
  • : Paperback
  • : 1
  • : 320
  • : Philip Roughton