Reykjavík Grapevine - feb. 2021, Blaðsíða 26

Book
‘AUTOSARCOPHAGY, to eat oneself’
is available in bookstores and at
helencova.com and shop.grapevine.is
Here’s the odd thing: eating one-
self, literally, is not technically il-
legal in Iceland. Nor is it anywhere
else—if you insist on being precise
about it. But if you dive into the
concept from a poetic standpoint,
things get more complicated.
Therapeutic soul
destroying
Venezuelan/Icelandic writer Helen
Cova recently published a short
story collection ‘AUTOSARCOPH-
AGY, to eat oneself’ under the um-
brella of the fantastic Ós Pressan.
First off, don’t worry—it’s safe to
say that the book is not literally
about self-cannibalism. Rather,
it explores the darker forces that
can eat one’s soul and mind.
Helen’s style resides some-
where in between the endless
snowy darkness of the Westf-
jords and the mild atmosphere
of Venezuela. Out of this comes
the collection, presenting a reck-
oning with the writer’s violent
upbringing, framed within the
framework of magical realism.
“The origin of autosarcophagy
is to eat the dead parts of your
body,”$Helen explains. Writing
the book was therapeutic, she ex-
plains. “It has a lot of myself in it
and my experience and also a lot of
my childhood. That was something
I needed to address,“ she says.$”I
was mistreated as
a child, all of these
things were a weight
on my shoulders.“
Although it can
be hard to disti l
these magical re-
alistic stories as
solely a showdown
between a grownup
and their violent
ch i ld hood, there
is a distinct lack
of mercy in them.
One tells the story
of a woman in love
who needs to kill
her lover. Another is
about a child who ate hair and is
beaten for it. Yet another describes
the wall between a set of neigh-
bours and their verbal sparring
through it. Each short prose has
a dark tone that adds up to a con-
frontation with Helen’s own past.
Tackling taboos
“I'm trying to talk about these
things and trying to just put it
out there and say that they ex-
ist,” Helen says. “There is a lot of
violence and there is a lot of an-
ger in the book—and this is also
part of life. I think it's important
to be able to talk about it. There
are many taboos, one of them is a
mother or a father, or a family, just
harming a child,” she explains.
“This is something that we don’t
want to talk about, but I wanted to
present this reality in the book,”
she continues. “These stories are
not in any sense autobiographi-
cal, but they do reach the subject.”
‘AUTOSARCOPHAGY, to eat
oneself ’ is more than Helen’s
gripping prose—it also features
the absolutely gorgeous illus-
trations by Rubén Chumillas.
“We met at the Blue Bank [Blái
Bankinn] and I was so lucky to
meet him. He is from Spain and
he used to work with the biggest
publishers when he lived there,”
Helen explains. Rubén’s works
truly elevate the book, setting the
stage and tone for Helen to tell
her story. His drawings connect
strongly with Iceland, but at the
same time, are true to the book’s
South American atmosphere.
At the end of the world
Helen came to Iceland five years
ago and, like many others who
settle here, she found an Icelandic
partner. Now she lives in one of the
darkest, most rural places in the
country: "ingeyri.
“Well, the win-
ter is better this
year than the last,”
she laughs when
asked about her
perception of her
new home. “This is
different. You can
see happy children
running around
with no jackets in
the snow, loving
mothers following
them with the par-
kas, and it’s just
very intriguing,”
she concludes soft-
ly. “And I would pay just to be able to
go back in time, and live as a child
here, perhaps not forever, because
I love Caracas also, but...” she trails
off. “Perhaps just for a moment.“
26The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 02— 2021Books
!"# KR. !"# KR.
SÆTA SVÍNI$ / Hafnarstræti 1-3 / Tel. 555 2900 / saetasvinid.is
ICELANDIC GASTROPUB
Kids, don't try this at home
“There is a lot
of violence and
there is a lot
of anger in the
book—and this
is also part of
life. I think it's
important to
be able to talk
about it.”
Autocannibalism
For Be%inners
Helen Cova deals with her dark past
Words: Valur Grettisson Photo: Sigur!ur Grétar Jökulsson