Forlagið, Iceland's leading publishing house, presents Ísland pólerað by Ewa Marcinek. A bittersweet collection of stories, poems, and anecdotes about immigrant life in Iceland.
After a painful divorce and a sexual assault from a stranger, a young Polish woman grabs an opportunity and moves to Iceland to start a new life. Yet, the new chapter is filled with half-blind encounters and quirky dialogues with customers of a small Reykjavík restaurant, linguistic mishaps, and attempts to rediscover herself in a new country and a new language.
Ísland polerað is an autobiographical collection of stories, poems, and anecdotes, fragments of everyday conversations, thoughts, memories, and observations. The title of the book comes from a play on words, Polish and to polish, referring to physical work, the most common form of the first employment among immigrants moving to Iceland.
LANGUAGE: ICELANDICTranslation: Helga Soffía EinarsdóttirDesign: Alexandra Buhl / ForlagiðPublished by: JPV útgáfa · Forlagið Reykjavík · 2022ISBN 978-9935-29-246-9www.forlagid.ismedia coverage
12/05/2022
With irony and warmth at the same time, Ewa artistically draws on amusing situations and ironic conversations as she recounts a painful experience. Although the work is the poet's first published book, she has been very active in Icelandic literary life in recent years. Ewa is one of the founders of Ós Pressan and Reykjavík Ensemble. She is one of the authors of the poetry book “Pólífónía af erlendum uppruna”, which was published last year, and was also a columnist at Tímarit Mál og menningar in 2021.
- Guðrún Steinþórsdóttir og Helga Jónsdóttir
