The Icelandic connection - 01.09.2010, Page 38

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ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 63 #2
Book Reviews
The Young Icelander
by Johann Magnus Bjarnason
translated by Borga Jakobson
Reviewed by Rob Olason
2009 was a watershed year for cele-
brants of the literature of Icelandic-North
American authors.
In early spring an important new
voice was added when Christina Sunley
brought her debut novel, The Tricking of
Freya, to the attention of North American
readers. Sunley wove an intricate tale
about Freya, a young woman who tries to
make sense of her seemingly rudderless
adult life by returning to her childhood
haunts along the shores of Lake
Winnipeg. As she starts piecing together
fragments of memory, conversations and
new discoveries her past begins to take on
a more meaningful shape. Sunley does a
masterful job weaving the story of this
quest for self-discovery with Freya’s
broader discovery of her long forgotten
Icelandic heritage and the deeply rooted
pull it has had on her life. With the intro-
duction of The Tricking of Freya, we have
gained an important new voice and a very
important new work exploring the life of
contemporary North Americans of
Icelandic descent.
As 2009 drew to a close another
important voice in Icelandic North
American literature was given the oppor-
tunity to speak to new generations of
North Americans of Icelandic descent. At
the same time, English-speaking audi-
ences had their first opportunity to read a
classic of immigration literature from the
turn of the last century. Borga Jakobson
has delivered a masterful translation of a
wonderful coming of age story that is at
once a universal tale of the struggles of all
immigrants in a new land and a testament
to the resilience of the human spirit.
The Young Icelander, The Story of an
Immigrant in Nova Scotia and Manitoba
is the result of Borga Jakobson's transla-
tion of Johann Magnus Bjarnason's
Eirtkur Hansson: A Novel of Nova Scotia,
which was originally published in three
installments in 1899, 1902 and 1903. In