Iceland

Though she now spends much of her time in New York, she keeps coming back to Iceland, where she lives for several months of the year. The relative simplicity of the place is reassuring to her. Once, she translated a local news headline for my benefit : “TIRE TRACKS IN FOOTBALL FIELD.“ A look of pleasure crossed her face as she studied photographic evidence of the catastrophe. “This is so Iceland,“ she said.

The New Yorker, 30 august 2004