FICTION
"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)
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 ferritory, 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 2005 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.
"Enchantingly poetic... Spellbinding... Magical... Exceptional Require[s] that one use the loose descriptive 'thriller' too." -Nuruddin Farah, The Independent
Sjón is the author of, among other works, From the Mouth, of the Whale and The Whispering Muse.
Born in Reykjavik in 1962, he is an award-winning novelist, poet, and playwright.
His novels have been translated into twenty-five languages.
Also a lyricist, he has written songs for Björk, including for her most recent project, Biophilia, and was nominated for an Oscar for the lyrics he cowrote (with Lars von Trier) for Dancer in the Dark.
He lives in Reykjavik.
ISBN: 978-0-374-11445-9
51000
FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX
780324 134459
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Blue Fox (Icelandic: Skugga-Baldur) is a 2003 novel by Icelandic writer Sjón.
The book was originally published by Bjartur and first published in the United States in 2013.
Plot
The book took place in Iceland in 1883. It opens with a priest hunting a blue fox, then jumps backward to the days leading up to the hunt.
An herbalist buries the recently deceased woman with Down syndrome that he rescued from a shipwreck.
It details their life together before returning to the present.
The priest shoots and kills the mysterious blue fox he is hunting, but the sound from his rifle causes an avalanche.
While trapped underneath the snow in a glacial cave, the priest starts to go insane.
The fox comes back to life and argues with him about the invention of electricity and the priest kills the fox a second time, this time skinning her and wearing the blue fox fur.
He then transforms into a blue fox himself.
The book ends with a letter from the herbalist, who explains the girl with Down syndrome was the priest's daughter, whom he sold into slavery several years before the herbalist rescued her.