A theater prop in her sixties, Elín, the narrator of Chaos Matter by the Icelandic Kristín Eiríksdóttir (Icelandic National Prize for Literature in 2017), is collaborating in the staging of the expected first play by a very young playwright, Ellen. Memories of the past, which Elín tries to repress somehow, will mingle with the difficult story of the young writer, daughter of a famous poet killed by alcohol, living in difficult socio-economic conditions with a mother who suffers from mental health problems. Their names are similar and both met in tragic circumstances a few years ago. In a Reykjavík that is far from the postcard, the two female characters of this novel, struggling to exist as much as to know each other — as women and as artists, inevitably fragmented — will almost end up merging into one. Poetic, chaotic (of course) and enigmatic.
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