The journey home - Olaf Olafsson

In this beautifully crafted novel, Icelandic writer Olaf Olafsson tells the moving story of a woman, who, in the remaining months of her life, undertakes an extraordinary emotional journey.

It is the early 1960s. Disa, an accomplished cook, has lived a quiet life in Somerset for some years, managing a country-house hotel with her close companion Anthony.  However, upon learning that she is terminally ill, Disa decides it is time to travel back to the village in Iceland where she was born. 

With enormous sensitivity, Olaf Olafsson takes the reader with Disa on her quiet heroic journey. As she goes north, events she has spent most of her life trying to forget are slowly revealed. Turned away by her mother, her young fiancé murdered by the Nazis, Disa was left to find refuge as a cook in a wealthy household that contained within it the seeds of both sexual and political violence. The consequences have marked her forever - only now can she attempt to find a resolution.