It is the year 1940, and Hitler’s bombs are raining down on Norway. The cities of Western Norway are ablaze, and in one particular village, people are fleeing to the sea in the middle of the night. A seven-year-old boy stands at the gunwale of a ship, crying because he does not want to leave behind his grandfather, who is standing on the quay. The ship is bound for America.

However, the journey does not take them to America, but instead to Klaksvík where the little boy and his travel companions remain for several months. The time spent in the Faroe Islands never leaves the boy, and years later, when he starts writing about it, the world that he once experienced emerges clearly, rich with small details and sensory descriptions – smells, tastes, and sounds – as well as recollections of minor and major events. Without sentimentality or idealization, the boy’s emotions are conveyed alongside with his attempts to find answers to great questions, such as what is war? And why do we consider those different from us to be strange? And how can he integrate into his new environment?

The latter part of the novel, “Minnisfundur”, consists of the author’s travel account of the Faroe Islands in 1976. A great observer, he recounts the profound and visible changes that have taken place. But his purpose is to journey back in time to that which was and to see if anything still remains. In the midst of these new and modern circumstances, it is the people he encounters that help him reconnect to what was. Furthermore, nature, the weather, and, not least, the sound of the Faroese language all contribute to awakening the past and building a bridge to the present.

Asbjörn Hildremyr, b. 1932, has translated the short story collection Aldurnar spæla á sandi (Bårene leikar over sanden, 1976) by Jens Pauli Heinesen.