Nordic Book Club, April 2024

Join us in April as we read The Old Man and His Sons by Faroese author Heðin Brú (1901-1987).

From the publisher: 

These are the Faroe Islands as they were some fifty years ago: sea-washed and remote, with one generation still tied to the sea for sustenance, and a younger generation turning toward commerce and clerical work in the towns.

At the post-hunt whale-meat auction, Ketil enthusiastically bids for more meat than he can afford. Thus when Ketil is seventy, he and his wife struggle to repay their debt.

Thus in his seventieth year, Ketil and his wife, along with their youngest son, struggle to repay their debt. They scavenge for driftwood and stranded seals, and knit up a storm of sweaters to sell in town. 

This touching novel deftly captures a vanishing way of life.

The Faroese chose this book as their "Book of the Twentieth Century."