Seal Mother by Gerður Kristný, translated by Rory McTurk
Arc Publications
Published 15th October 2025.
The narrator of Cow Seal is a woman who lives by Iceland’s northernmost coast, where the struggle for life is hard, winters attack with sea ice and cold. Her husband dies, a child dies, and other calamities follow, but the woman and her children never give up. They endure. The woman helps a seal give birth – the boundaries between man and animal, culture and nature disappear in this magical book. The text is chiselled, the poems traditional in form with alliteration and internal rhyme reminiscent of ancient metres which underscore the timelessness and relevance of the work to the constant struggle for life that is the lot of both humans and animals.
The narrator of Cow Seal is a woman who lives by Iceland’s northernmost coast, where the struggle for life is hard, winters attack with sea ice and cold. Her husband dies, a child dies, and other calamities follow, but the woman and her children never give up. They endure. The woman helps a seal give birth – the boundaries between man and animal, culture and nature disappear in this magical book. The text is chiselled, the poems traditional in form with alliteration and internal rhyme reminiscent of ancient metres which underscore the timelessness and relevance of the work to the constant struggle for life that is the lot of both humans and animals.
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