Red Milk - Paperback

by Sjón (Author), Victoria Cribb (Translator)

WINNER OF THE SWEDISH ACADEMY'S NORDIC PRIZE 2023

A timely and provocative novel from the internationally celebrated novelist Sjón, about a mysterious Icelandic neo-Nazi and the enduring global allure of fascism.

In England in 1962, an Icelandic man is found dead on a train. In his possession, policemen find a map on which a swastika has been drawn with a red pen. Who was he, and where was he going?

Based on the life of one of the ringleaders of a little-known neo-Nazi group that operated in Reykjavík in the late fifties and early sixties, Red Milk explores what shapes a young man and the enduring, disturbing allure of Nazi ideology.

In Red Milk, acclaimed author Sjón tells the story of Gunnar Kampen, the founder of Iceland's antisemitic nationalist party, who has ties to a burgeoning network of neo-Nazi groups across the globe. Told in a series of scenes and letters spanning Kampen's lifetime--from his childhood in Reykjavík during the Second World War, in a household strongly opposed to Hitler, through his education, his political radicalization, and his final clandestine mission to England--this taut and potent novel urges readers to confront the international legacy of twentieth-century fascism, and the often undetectable forces that drive some people to extremism.

Author Biography

Sjón's novels have been published in more than thirty-five languages. He won the Nordic Council Literature Prize for The Blue Fox, and From the Mouth of the Whale was short-listed for both the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was received every major literary prize in Iceland. Sjón has published more than a half dozen poetry collections and has written four opera libretti and lyrics for various artists, including Björk. He is the president of the PEN International Icelandic Centre and lives in Reykjavík with his wife and two children.

Victoria Cribb has translated more than thirty books by Icelandic authors, including Arnaldur Indridason, Ragnar Jónasson, and Yrsa Sigurdardóttir. Her translations of Sjón's Moonstone and CoDex 1962 were long-listed for the Best Translated Book Award and the PEN Translation Prize in 2017 and 2019, respectively. In 2017, she received the Ordstír honorary translation award for services to Icelandic literature. She now lives in Vienna, Austria.