Icelanders are surely among the best placed in the world to see the effects of climate change on the environment. In her new novel, writer Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir continues to teach us more about this small island nation where nothing is like anywhere else, while expressing, through her character, her own concerns about the future of the planet as well than on the survival of her language, which she fears will disappear.
Alba is an Icelandic linguist who subscribes to international conferences where all kinds of world specialists in languages threatened with extinction or already extinct meet. A word nerd whose mind can stop on a specific term and wander into its etymology in the middle of a conversation.
One day, on her way home, she thinks about the number of trees she would have to plant to offset the carbon footprint of all the plane trips she took in a year: more than 5,000. Then, at the detour While walking in Reykjavik, the advertisement for land for sale caught his attention with its spelling mistakes and unusual wording. On a whim, she decides to buy it to plant trees.
Little by little, in the middle of this deserted moor where she observes the direct consequences of climate change, she puts her plan into action by following the advice of her father and his neighbor, a reforestation enthusiast. Thanks to a merchant from the neighboring village who was a little too curious and very talkative, she also began giving Icelandic lessons to refugees living in the region.
In her own way, Alba sets out to save her little piece of planet and her language, offering us a few Icelandic lessons along the way. These linguistic digressions are sometimes confusing, but they nevertheless manage to pique our curiosity about this complex language, without being strictly didactic.
The unique imagination of Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir also has the luxury of being carried by the masterful translation of Éric Boury, a specialist in Scandinavian languages who has managed to retain his French voice previously signed by Catherine Eyjólfsson.
On several occasions, as we read, we risk saying to ourselves thatEden will perhaps not be part of the novels of the writer which remain in memory like The improvement Or The exception. Then we arrive at this magnificent finale, full of hope, where everything suddenly comes together. “We are at the center of our existence at every moment,” writes Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, and the expression then takes on its full meaning, as if to remind us that all is not yet lost.
Eden
Zulma
256 pages