Joanes Nielsen–THE BRAHMADELLS
Posted in 4-2017 Reviews, Faroe Islands, Historical, Literary, Social and Political Issues on Nov 22nd, 2017
This novel, an epic story of the Faroe Islands, closely resembles a tell-all “confidential” of family secrets over several generations while also providing a broad picture of island history. Written in Faroese by Joanes Nielsen, a native of the Faroe Islands, the novel features a main character who is also a Faroese author, working on a novel about the cultural history of the islands. This fictional character decides to “work some of his own family history into the book,” especially the life of his great-great-grandfather, Nils Tvibur, a violent man, whom he suspects he resembles more than he’d like. Tracing several families through the eighteenth century to the present, Joanes Nielsen creates characters who relish their independence and still resent the foreign countries which have tried to tame them and bring them under political control. The British, Norwegians, and Danish have all occupied and left their marks on the Faroe Islands, and the Faroese characters who live in this book during these periods convey their own individual resentments and, sometimes, act upon them with violence. Filled with surprises, the novel provides many chances to “see” the Faroe Islands in detail and come to know a unique culture.
