From the Mouth of the Whale

From the Mouth of the Whale is an Icelandic saga for the modern age. The year is 1635. Iceland is a world darkened by superstition poverty and cruelty. Men of science marvel over a unicorn''s horn poor folk worship the Virgin in secret and both books and men are burned.Sjón introduces us to Jónas Pálmason a poet and self-taught healer banished to a barren island for heretical conduct as he recalls his gift for curing female maladies his exorcism of a walking corpse on the remote Snjáfjöll coast the frenzied massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers and the deaths of three of his children. Pálmason''s story echoes across centuries and cultures an epic tale that makes us see the world anew.