Novel
Cab 79
79 af stöðinni
Indriði G. Þorsteinsson · 1955
Synopsis
In the early fifties, Ragnar, who has come from the countryside, drives a taxi in Reykjavík. One night he takes a drunken American soldier back to the Keflavík base and, on the way back, helps an elegant woman whose Buick has broken down, the woman known as Gógó. A passionate affair begins between them, but it is clouded when Ragnar learns that Gógó has a husband, and that another man, an American soldier named Bill, also counts in her life.
Context
Published in 1955, the author's first novel caused a stir by the frankness with which it showed newly independent Iceland, its recent affluence, its cars, its leisure and the foreign troops stationed on its soil. The Dane Erik Balling made a film from it in 1962. The book was translated into German by Betty Wahl in 2010 and into English by Quentin Bates in 2018, with an introduction by Arnaldur Indriðason, the author's son; German critics recognised in it the lesson of Hemingway's dialogue and the tone of the American short story.
Who it is for
A short novel, with a sober style and brief dialogues; it can be read in English or German.
Prizes and reception
Controversial when it appeared, the book opened the way for a new generation of Icelandic writers.
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