Time often teases us, offering everything only for it to be taken away again. It has been three weeks since the boy arrived at Plássið (the place), carrying tremendously dangerous literature on his back, and with each passing day, the path between Bárður and life itself ruthlessly elongates.

Jens, the postman, has arrived at Plássið, and barely escaped the northerly wind, despite the arrival of spring. On one of the final days of April, the boy and the postman venture to Vetrarstrond where drifting snow blurs the boundary between heaven and ocean, erasing all traces of landscape and direction. If the devil ever created anything on this earth, apart from money, it must be drifting snow on mountains.

Harmur einglanna (The Sorrow of Angels) is an independent sequel to the book Himmal og helviti, published by Sprotin in 2022. Jón Kalman Stefánsson has been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize three times over the past few years. He received the Icelandic Literary Prize in 2005 for the book Summarljós, og so kemur náttin.