IMPRESSUM

'Land of Love, Plan of Ruins' is a novel written in the form of a diary that pans from small details to big questions and weaves elements of philosophy, history, archaeology, ecology, eroticism, and literature into a beautifully patterned whole. In the wake of Iceland’s financial crisis, a young author, recently separated and exploring the uncertain terrain of a new relationship, finds herself questioning the foundations of love and family lives, one's bonds to one's country and the Earth. Inspired by a dream about an old Viking woman on a pilgrimage, she sets out on a quest to the ruins of the homes of her ancestors, where they tried to live in harmony with nature and with each other. Using the vivid imagination and the surreal elements, the author creates a version of reality describing dilemmas of the ordinary life through an inner journey.

As in her two earlier novels, Oddný Eir's text verges on the autobiographical and is highly personal. Describing a period in the narrator's life where she is searching for a place to belong and urging to settle down, she is emotionally  attached both to her brother and her lover. Her search takes her around Iceland and abroad to Paris, Strasbourg, Basel, and on all kind of journeys, physical and mental, through time and space. In this stream-of-consciousness kind of novel, the author-narrator poses questions about both personal and the universal.