Nebo i pakao

At the dawn of the XX. century, life in Iceland is just as harsh and just as beautiful as it was on the first day - there are mountains, a settlement along the coast, fish and the waiting sea. There are the boy and his friend Barður, more than unusual fishermen, who will set out on the open sea in an open boat carrying Milton's verses in their heads, instead of anger and caution, and longing for cod.

When a winter storm finds them at sea, only one will return to the island, and he will have to flee, over the mountain and through the winter, looking for answers and carrying a book, because the fifth element in Stefánsson's world is language, and its magic, without which there would be nothing - poetry.

The praises that the most prominent contemporary Icelandic writer Jón Kalman Stefánsson received for the novel Heaven and Hell are not exaggerated: this fascinating story about Iceland and its timeless past is a timeless odyssey, a lyrical meditation on life and death, on the heaven and hell that we carry within us.