translated by Philip Roughton

SYNOPSIS
A portrait of an artist trapped by convention and expectations but longing for the chaos that can set her free.
Growing up on a farm in early twentieth-century rural Iceland, Karitas Jónsdóttir, one of six siblings, yearns for a new life. An artist, Karitas has a powerful calling and is determined to never let go of her true being, one unsuited for the conventional. But she is powerless against the fateful turns of real life and all its expectations of women. Pulled back time and again by design and by chance to the Icelandic countryside―as dutiful daughter, loving mother, and fisherman’s wife―she struggles to thrive, to be what she was meant to be.
Spanning decades and set against a breathtaking historical canvas, Karitas Untitled, an award-winning classic of Icelandic literature, is a complex and immersive portrait of an artist’s conflict with love, family, nature, and a country unaccustomed to an untraditional woman―but most of all, with herself and the creative instincts she has no choice but to follow.

MY REVIEW
I enjoyed this book so much.
Completely immersive I felt as if I was there in Iceland with Karitas. Vivid descriptions of the land, sea and glaciers. Descriptions of how life was in the remote parts of Iceland. How they cooked, cleaned, what they ate (blood pudding being just one staple!) and they lived a simple but physically demanding life.
The book is split into three sections, the initial section beginning in 1915 and the final section ending in 1939, and follows the lives of Karitas and her 5 siblings who are living with their mother. Their father died whilst out fishing. Their mother has a difficult life bringing up her 6 children with very little money. Working the land and then knitting clothes to sell to raise money.
Schooling is difficult to come by but the mother wants her children to have an education so travels north by boat on a very difficult passage, arriving to find she has no accommodation so has to live in the attic of a fish warehouse. The girls find work doing menial jobs such as laundry and cleaning fish which makes painful hands, but they don’t complain. Then the strong willed Karitas manages to find them a small house.
Then a life changing meeting happens for Karitas when she is summoned to the home of a wealth female artist Madam Eugenía. It is virtually unheard of for a woman to be an artist in those times.
Madam Eugenía has seen some of Karitas work and arranges for her to go to The Royal Academy of fine arts in Copenhagen and has guaranteed her room and board for five years.
I won’t go into the storyline in detail but the rest of the book, parts 2 and 3, follow Karitas in later stages of her life through marriage and having children.
The author also weaves in some Icelandic folklore about elf people.
This was quite a long read but I didn’t want it to end!
About the Author

Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir is one of Iceland’s most acclaimed writers and the internationally bestselling author of numerous novels, including Karitas Untitled, a Nordic Council Literature Prize nominee; Street of the Mothers; Chaos on Canvas; and Seagull’s Laughter, which was adapted for the stage and also into an award-winning film. She received her degree in 1991 from the University of Iceland and has also worked as a teacher and a journalist. Among Kristín Marja’s many honors are the Knight’s Cross of the Icelandic Order of the Falcon for her achievements in writing and her contributions to Icelandic literature, the Jónas Hallgrímsson Prize, and the FjöruverðlaunWomen’s Literature Prize. Kristín Marja lives in Reykjavík.
Philip Roughton is an award-winning translator of many of Iceland’s best-known authors, including Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness, Jón Kalman Stefánsson, Þórarinn Eldjárn, Bergsveinn Birgisson, and Steinunn Sigurðardóttir.













