The Greenhouse

Audur Ava Olafsdottir

ISBN 10: 1611090792 / ISBN 13: 9781611090796

Published by AmazonCrossing, 2011

Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00099574042

Synopsis:

For Lobbi, the tragic passing of his mother proves to be a profound catalyst. Their shared love of tending rare roses in her greenhouse inspires him to leave his studies behind and travel to a remote village monastery to restore its once fabulous gardens. While transforming the garden under the watchful eye of a cinephile monk, he is surprised by a visit from Anna, a friend of a friend with whom he shared a fateful moment in his mother’s greenhouse, and the daughter they together conceived that night. In caring for both the garden and the little girl, Lobbi slowly begins to assume the varied and complex roles of a man: fatherhood with a deep relationship with his child, cooking, nurturing, and remaining also a son, brother, lover, and…a gardener. A story about the heartfelt search for beauty in life, The Greenhouse is a touching reminder of our ability to turn the small things in everyday life into the extraordinary.

About the Author:

Audur Ava Olafsdottir was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1958. She studied art history and art theory in Paris and is a lecturer in history of art at the University of Iceland and a director of the University of Iceland Art Collection. She has curated art exhibitions in Iceland and abroad, including the Venice Biennale, and written about art and art history in various media.

Audur Ava is the author of three novels, a book of poetry, and a play. The first novel, Raised Earth, was published in Iceland in 1998. Rain in November was published to rave reviews in 2004 and received the City of Reykjavik Literary Award. The Greenhouse, published in 2007 and forthcoming in English from AmazonCrossing, won the DV Culture Award for literature and a women’s literary prize in Iceland and was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Award. Since The Greenhouse was published in France in the autumn of 2010 under the title of Rosa Candida, the book has attracted a great deal of coverage in the French media and received unanimously good reviews. In September 2010, it received the Prix de Page literary award as the best European novel of 2010. The Prix de Page award is determined by a group of 771 bookstores in France where the book was on the bestseller’s list for five consecutive months. The novel was also nominated for three other literary awards in France, including the prestigious Femina award. In January The Greenhouse was shortlisted for the Canadian 2011 Prix des libraires du Québec award. Audur Ava Olafsdottir published The Hymn of Glitter, a book of poetry, in 2010, and her first play will premiere at the National Theatre of Iceland in September 2011.

Audur Ava Olafsdottir’s middle name, Ava, was adopted a few years ago as a tribute to the blind medieval French saint, Ava. Audur Ava Olafsdottir lives and works in Reykjavik.

As a translator and playwright, Brian FitzGibbon has a particular passion for the translation of fiction. With experience that spans over twenty years, he has translated a vast array of film scripts, treatments, stage plays, and novels, working exclusively into English from Italian, French, and Icelandic. His translation of the Icelandic cult novel 101 Reykjavik by Hallgrimur Helgason, published by Faber & Faber in the UK and Scribner in the US in 2002, was hailed by the Guardian as “dazzling” and the New York Times as “lucid.”

Brian’s one-act play, The Papar, was staged by the Abbey Theatre at the Peacock in Dublin in 1997, and subsequently adapted into a short film called Stranded, premiered at the Tribeca Film Center in New York one year later. An Icelandic translation of the play was broadcast on Icelandic radio in 2005 and nominated for a Gríman Award the same year. His full-length play, Another Man, was a finalist at the Playwrights Slam at the 2005 Chichester Theatre Festival in the UK. A radio adaptation of the play was broadcast on Icelandic State radio in the spring of 2008 and nominated for an Icelandic Gríman Award.

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Greenhouse
Publisher: AmazonCrossing
Publication Date: 2011
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Good