Miss Iceland

by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

  The novel is full of other texts that the reader never gets to read, in particular Hekla’s many manuscripts both published and unpublished. Was their absence from the novel significant to you? What did you make of the presence of women’s voices in the novel?

  Towards the end of the novel, Jón John declares that “Even if the world can’t accommodate a queer… it can at least find room for a female writer.” How do Jón John and Hekla’s experiences of discrimination and oppression, as a gay man and as a woman respectively, compare? How similar are the forces that oppress them?

  Jón John recounts how his mother once told him “When you move abroad to find your roots, you will call yourself D.J. Johnsson”. What’s in a name for the characters of Miss Iceland?