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Under the Glacier
Under the Glacier
Mar 30, 2026 8:56 AM

Author:Halldór Laxness,Susan Sontag

Under the Glacier

'Wildly original, morose, uproarious... It is also one of the funniest books ever written' Susan Sontag

A naive young man is sent by the bishop of Iceland to investigate a small town that has reportedly lost its faith. The church is boarded up and the errant pastor lives with a woman who is not his wife. He has also allowed a corpse to be lodged in the glacier. So the rumours go.

What he discovers is a community that regards itself as the centre of the world - earthly yet otherworldly, banal yet astonishing. Brimming with humour, mystery, and the supernatural this is a surprising and moving novel from the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SUSAN SONTAG

Reviews

This is a novel of immense charm... It's a book of ideas, like no other Laxness ever wrote

—— Susan Sontag

Under the Glacier is hilarious, in a deadpan, northern-edge-of-the-world sort of way

—— Andrew O'Hehir , Salon

Whimsical... deliriously funny... impishly chaotic

—— Kirkus Reviews

Under the Glacier is a journey to the center of Laxness's antic imagination, and it is well worth the trip

—— Vincent Czyz , The Arts Fuse

Stepping Up is a heart-blasting triumph of a novel - wise, witty and wonderfully human.

—— Isabelle Broom, author of THE GETAWAY

Funny and sad, and everything in between. It had me hooked from the first page. A brilliant book, and one that I'd definitely recommend!

—— James Bailey, author of THE FLIP SIDE

Written with such love and heart. Sarah has done an exceptional job of marrying her trademark comedy with deep and raw emotion. I loved it!

—— Giovanna Fletcher

A moving and beautifully-told tale of parenthood but not as you know it. I just loved it.

—— Gillian McAllister

Witty and moving

—— Fabulous

A glorious novel about family, grief, changing expectations and, ultimately, love

—— The Sun

I loved it . . . Annie Garthwaite writes about the past with a kind of restrained, earthy vim, and with the sort of intimacy and immediacy - and empathy - that can only come from graft and craft

—— Toby Clements

This sort of poetry fills the hole in our culture left by preaching. It's topical... Shire speaks of racism, misogyny and life as a refugee... Her imagery is striking

—— Sunday Times

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is full of ferocious love and truth. It is not overstatement to say Shire writes the way Nina Simone sang

—— Terrance Hayes, author of National Book Award finalist, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

Heartbreaking, full-bodied, and luscious. Although they encompass complex themes, the poems are lucid and utterly magically alive, it's almost like the book is a person!

—— Pascale Petit

Warsan Shire is an expert sculptor. She molds words into clay, her poems into statues-each one a wonder that I return to, in reverence. Because in every line, every curve is an invitation to see differently what has been deemed ugly or difficult. This book is the art gallery I've yearned to visit

—— Vivek Shraya, author of I’m Afraid of Men

Read these candid and revelatory poems to wrap your arms tight around the certainty of your own fracture, to acknowledge the many places and many ways your body has succumbed to violation and only fitfully healed. Read them to know your whole muscled self as a vessel for grief, and to bask in the stuttered lyric of its story. Beauty is maddeningly elusive, but it does exist. It's here in these lines, bursting brilliant, reshaping the story

—— Patricia Smith, author of Incendiary Art

Her poems are alchemical; I promise if you read a poem of hers you might levitate, at the very least you will be changed

—— Ella Baxter , The Millions

Shire's electrifying poems have the resonance of instant classics... Shire raises up in dignity the lives of immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women and teenage girls... This is poetry that has the power to create empathy, a quality which often seems lacking in these turbulent times

—— Caroline Sanderson , Bookseller

A very contemporary mix of deep tenderness and caustic humour

—— New Statesman, *Books of the Year*

A celebration of Black womanhood, joy, diaspora and beyond.

—— Stylist, *Christmas Gift Guide 2022*

With many of its poems famous in wider culture, it delivers an emotional intensity no less captivating for being familiar

—— Guardian, *Books of the Year*

This collection is a gut-punching series of poems that has haunted me ever since I first read it. I am so excited to see what Warsan Shire does next

—— Student Newspaper

[A] stunning debut collection... her words speak to women's experiences worldwide

—— Bernadine Evaristo, author of GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER , Guardian
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