Read and discuss Scandinavian literature in translation as part of our Nordic Book Club, now online! Each month we select a novel from some of the best Nordic literary voices. On December 6, we’ll be discussing Red Milk by Icelandic author Sjón, out now in translation by Victoria Cribb.
In this timely and provocative novel about a mysterious Icelandic neo-Nazi and the enduring global allure of fascism, an Icelandic man is found dead on a train bound for Cheltenham Spa in 1962 England. In his possession, policemen find a map on which a swastika has been drawn with a red pen. Who was he, and where was he going? Through biography and mystery we learn the story of Gunnar Kampen, founder of Iceland’s antisemitic nationalist party, with ties to a burgeoning network of neo-Nazi groups across the globe.
Told in a series of scenes and letters spanning Kampen’s lifetime — from his childhood in Reykjavík during the Second World War, in a household strongly opposed to Hitler and his views, through his education, political radicalization, and final clandestine mission to England — Red Milk urges readers to confront the international legacy of twentieth-century fascism and the often unknowable forces that drive some people to extremism. Based on one of the ringleaders of a little-known neo-Nazi group that operated in Reykjavík in the late 1950s and early 1960s, this taut and potent novel explores what shapes a young man and the enduring, disturbing allure of Nazi ideology.
“A worthy companion to anti-fascist works by Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre”—Publisher’s Weekly
https://www.scandinaviahouse.org/events/red-milk-book-club/