Red Milk

WINNER OF THE SWEDISH ACADEMY'S NORDIC PRIZE 2023

'A book like a blade of light, searching out and illuminating the darkest corners of history . . . It's vivid, unputdownable, alive, and written with unerring artfulness and subtlety.' Neel Mukherjee

Gunnar Kampen grows up in Iceland during the Second World War in a household fiercely opposed to Hitler and Nazism. At nineteen he seems set for a conventional, dutiful life. And yet in the spring of 1958, he founds a covert, anti-Semitic nationalist party, a cause that will take him on a clandestine mission to England from which he never returns.

Inspired by one of the ringleaders of a little-known neo-Nazi group that was formed in Iceland in the 1950s, Sjon's portrait of an ardent fascist is as thought-provoking as it is disturbing. As this taut and fascinating novel suggests, the seeds of extremism can be hard to detect - and the ideology of the far-right remains dangerously potent.

“Sjon's policy of omission-of drama, psychology, violence, grandeur of any kind-results in a delicious tension. He tempts us to expect so much of the novel, and though he never provides the relief of clean culminations, he manages to keep the reader wanting. - Asymptote JournalSjon's prose is appropriately sharp and precise, illuminating the murky corners of his topic. - New StatesmanThe chapters move like the prose equivalent of flip-book images, quick and evocative . . . Sjon's story, based on research into a real-life band of Icelandic neo-Nazis, dovetails nicely with current preoccupations about the resurgence of fascism . . . By tarrying for a while with the everyday - the ultimate site of real politics - Sjon gets at how endlessly interesting it can be, and how much it can contain and conceal. - New York Times Book ReviewWhat Sjon leaves out of his work is as powerful as what he puts in. His fiction never seems to break into a sweat, yet it takes you a long, long way. - David MitchellA slim forensic novel to strike a chill. - SagaThis is a landscape proper to a child's imagination, dreamlike but solid, with all the pronounced lucidity and wild agency that objects and colors assume . . . Sjon makes us think again about what empathy can - and frequently enough simply can't - achieve. - 4ColumnsLike Iceland itself, Sjon's books are simultaneously tiny and huge, weird and normal, ancient and modern. Reading them feels like listening to that story of the beached whale: a wild invention that is actually a straight-faced confession. His books dance - with light, quick steps, never breaking eye contact - all over the line between the mythic and the mundane. - New York Times”

SELECT PRAISE FOR CoDex 1962:

'This is a work of great ambition ... above all it feels like a work of virtuoso narrative for its own sake; an Icelandic 1001 Nights' - The Sunday Times

Sjon writes with a poet's ear and a musician's natural sense of rhythm . . . has mastered (Gunter Grass)'s technique of merging history with high-speed comedy and surreal profundity . . . an heir of Mikhail Bulgakov and Laurence Sterne, eases literary references into the text as mere suggestions . . . His wild, subversive imagination is among his great strengths - Guardian

Bewitching . . . His stories compound the dreamscapes of Surrealism, the marvels of Icelandic folklore and a pop-culture sensibility into free-form fables. Call it magic realism under Nordic lights - The Economist

[CoDex 1962] consumed me for the better part of a week. I can only echo Loewe, with gratitude, exasperation and awe. "This book's a bloody thief of time." - New York Times

This book is psychedelic, it's potent and it wants to consume the whole world . . . Sjon is a prodigal storyteller in all senses of the phrase . . . he is a master of atmosphere, a fine observer of the cross-hatchings of human motivation and a vivid noticer of detail. - New York Times Book Review

Sjon's novels are brilliant collisions of history and fable, psychology and fantasy - Guardian

Born in Reykjavik in 1962, Sjon is the author of the novels The Blue Fox, The Whispering Muse, From the Mouth of the Whale, Moonstone and CoDex 1962, for which he has won several awards including the Nordic Council's Literature Prize and the Icelandic Literary Prize. He has also been shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and his work has been translated into thirty-five languages.

In addition, Sjon has written nine poetry collections as well as four opera librettos and lyrics for various artists. He lives in Reykjavik, Iceland.

By the internationally acclaimed Icelandic writer Sjon, a timely novel about a young Neo-Nazi in post-WWII Iceland and the roots of the far-right global networks of today. Gunnar Kampen grew up in Reykjavik during the Second World War in a household strongly opposed to Hitler and his views. Doted on by his mother and two older sisters and with a degree from a business college, he is well set in life. And yet, in the spring of 1958, he founds an antisemitic nationalist party and sets about enthusiastically supporting an ever-growing international network of Neo-Nazis - a cause he continues to struggle for and that takes him on a clandestine mission to England, despite being terminally ill. Based on one of the ringleaders of a little-known Neo-Nazi group that operated in Reykjavik in the late '50s and early '60s, this taut and potent novel explores what shapes a young man and the enduring allure of Nazi ideology.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.