On the Cold Coasts

own great surprise, I no longer feel only emptiness and sadness. A tiny flame flutters deep in the darkness of my soul. I still long for something to call my own.
    Maybe I was mad—spellbound. What other than his galdur could have held me in thrall? One day, Thorkell Gudbjartsson shall be erased from my heart like the footsteps in the sand that vanish beneath the gentle waves.
    On that day I shall be free.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Photograph © Johann Pall Valdimarsson
    Vilborg Davidsdottir earned a degree in media studies from the University of Iceland in 1991, a BA in folkloristics and English in 2005, and an MA in folkloristics in 2011. She worked in the media for fifteen years as a journalist, radio programmer, and TV reporter but has focused on her writing since 2000. She has written six novels, three of which— By the Well of Fates (1993), The Norns Judgment (1994), and Audur (2009)—take place during the Viking Age in Iceland, Scandinavia, Scotland, and Ireland. Her other three novels— Sacrifice (1997), On the Cold Coasts (2000), and Raven (2005)—are set in fourteenth-and fifteenth century Iceland and Greenland. On the Cold Coasts is her first book to be translated into English. Vilborg lives in Reykjavik with her husband and is the mother of three children, aged seven, seventeen, and twenty-four.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
    Photograph © Annie Atkins
    Alda Sigmundsdottir is a writer, journalist, and translator. She grew up in Iceland, Canada, and Cyprus, and has also lived in Great Britain and Germany. Her translation work spans almost two decades and incorporates everything from annual reports to literature. She chronicled Iceland’s economic meltdown on her English-language blog, “The Iceland Weather Report,” and has subsequently been a frequent commentator and lecturer on her country’s social and economic situation. She has also written extensively about Iceland for the foreign press. Her first book, The Little Book of the Icelanders , will be published by Forlagid in spring 2012.