The Woman at 1,000 Degrees

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I thank the god of events, the one who brought Oddný Sturludóttir into my life and led her to politics, so that I would aid her in her 2006 election campaign: Here I was handed a list of phone numbers of all the residents of one random street in Reykjavík and told to call them and ask them to vote for the Social Democratic Party. The third person I phoned turned out to be an old lady living in a garage, Brynhildur Georgía Björnsson, and it was she who would become my great inspiration for this novel. I never met her in person (sadly she passed away a year later), but her brainy wit kept me on the phone for an astonishing forty minutes. After hanging up, I honestly asked myself why this woman was not a household name in Iceland.

I thank her, this woman at 1000 feet, in the sky above, and hope she is not too angry about all these words she inspired. (Although I did get a call from the south coast of Iceland, shortly after the book’s Icelandic publication, in which a rough-sounding sailor told me that the old lady had appeared to him in a session with a medium, and that she was ‘not amused.’)

I thank my Icelandic editor, Guðrún Sigfúsdóttir, for her good influence. Her point of view, quite often being very different from mine, was crucial to this story, and her hardest punches usually resulted in good chapters. I also thank my Icelandic publisher, Jóhann Páll Valdimarsson, for his belief and faith – and relentless optimism.

As Guðrún and Jóhann Páll happen to be a couple, I also thank their union, for they were the ones who early in 2009, when I – broken and beaten by my sudden divorce from the politician, and angry and confused by the political collapse of Iceland (all this happened in the same week) – invited me out to their summer house, cooked me dinner and put me to bed, only to wake me up with a wonderful walk and a yet more wonderful question: What will be your next book? I told them about the two ideas I was considering and they voted for the latter one, the story about the old lady in the garage.

I also thank my oldest friend, editor and publisher Páll Valsson, who has read all my books before publication. Valsson is every writer’s dream, an editor who always knows better than the author himself what he’s up to.

My dearest Agla also gets her share of acknowledgement, the woman of all my degrees, the one I met, so to speak, on the first page of the book, and became a part of the whole project, reading versions, asking questions, and helping with details from a female perspective.

I am grateful to my good translator, Brian Fitzgibbon of Dublin, Ireland, who for decades has lived in Iceland and is always open to my suggestions.

For the long-fought publication of my novel in English I first thank my French publisher, Frederique Polet, at Presses de la Cité. It was her enthusiasm that brought the book to the attention of agent Molly Friedrich in New York. Soon after, on a cold and dark night in November 2014, when I was standing in front of the parliament building in Reykjavík, part of yet another protest, my phone rang and this bright and energetic American voice said ‘Hi!’ It even managed to cut through all the heavy drumming and shouting, as every agent’s voice should do.

Many e-mails later, which all started with that same upbeat and very American ‘Hi!’, and with the crucial cooperation of Andrew Nurnberg, we found ourselves in the arms of Algonquin Books in the US and Oneworld Publications in the UK. I cannot thank dearest Molly Friedrich and Andrew Nurnberg enough, nor their people, Nichole LeFebvre and Ellen Gomory in NYC, and Eleonoora Kirk and Charlotte Seymour in London. All their reading, understanding and bottomless belief has proved to be priceless. I also thank master translator David McDuff for his contribution. Early on he translated the sample chapters of the book but was unable to carry on for health-related reasons.

I also thank my agent in London, Andrew Nurnberg, and all his people, who have managed to bring this book from a Reykjavík garage to territories as diverse as Albania and Argentina.

For the English version the story was re-edited, and here my Woman at 1,000 Degrees was lucky to land in the hands of a clever Scottish woman in Brooklyn, the wonderful Helen Rogan. Her deep insights were combined with the most sensitive touch. Like with the best of surgeons, her cuts required no anaesthesia for the trembling author, and all her subtle suggestions for clarifications and improvements proved to be spot on.

I am grateful to Juliet Mabey and Alyson Coombes at Oneworld for the cooperation and for betting on my strange book. Vimbai Shire also gets her share of thanks, for the final reading of the text.

Last but not least I thank you, dear reader, for coming this far. Without your support the writer is just a tree falling in the forest.