num_pages: 416
description: I live here alone in a garage together with a laptop computer and an old hand grenade. Its pretty cozy. Herra Bjrnsson is at the beginning of the end of her life. Oh she has two weeks left maybe threeshe has booked her cremation appointment at a crispy 1000 degrees so it wont be long. But until then she has her cigarettes a World War IIera weapon some Facebook friends and her memories to sustain her. And what a life this remarkable eighty-year-old narrator has led. In the internationally bestselling and award-winning Woman at 1000 Degrees which has been published in fourteen languages noted Icelandic novelist Hallgrmur Helgason has created a true literary original. From Herras childhood in the remote islands of Iceland where she was born the granddaughter of Icelands first president to teen years spent living by her wits alone in war-torn Europe while her father fought on the side of the Nazis to love affairs on several continents Herra Bjrnsson moved Zelig-like through the major events and locales of the twentieth century. She wed and lost husbands had children fled a war kissed a Beatle weathered the Icelandic financial crash and mastered the Internet. She has experienced luck and betrayal and upheaval and pain andwith a bawdy uncompromising spiritshe has survived it all. Now as she awaits death in a garage in Reykjavk she shows us a woman unbowed by the forces of history. Each part of Herras story is a poignant piece of a puzzle that comes together in the final pages of this remarkable unpredictable and enthralling novel.
language: English
title: Woman at 1,000 Degrees
publisher: Algonquin Books