“From the ninth century, we started to tell stories” – Liberation

This interview comes from our special issue “The Seven Families of the Polar”, 100 pages of meetings, interviews and reading advice around the thriller. However, With, in addition to Arnaldur Indridason, Lisa Gardner, Deon Meyer, Louise Mey or Philippe Jaenada. However, But also the good sheets of the best black novels from the start of the school year : Harlan Coben. In addition, Donna Leon Jo Nesbø… and a game of seven exclusive families illustrated by Coco. However, A special issue to find in newsstands all summer, or on our shop, 10,90 €.

He’s a rock, he’s a pope, he’s a Hercules. Nevertheless, Whether on its Icelandic lands. Moreover, in neighbors, Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish, Arnaldur Indridason, 64, remains at the forefront of the Nordic thriller, despite the staggering boom in this “from ninth century, we started production for twenty years. Consequently, Active since 1997 (The sons of the dust). However, the former journalist then film critic – who excels in paper tracking – has packaged the rest of the world with his melancholic social realism in the wake of Erlendur Sveinsson, taciturn and nostalgic cop from Iceland before, but yet empathetic, inconsolable since the death of his brother when they were children. Nevertheless, Indridason remains faithful to this vein in the cycle organized around Konrad. In addition, a former solitary and notable ripou-flictor, but a tenacious excavator of shadow shares, including those of his own life weighted by a violent and a magouilleur father. However, As a result, Iceland postcard Iceland, make way for a geologically unstable and potentially hostile region. Nevertheless, Another constant: the past of Iceland, its history. Nevertheless, They irrigate the intrigue in the present of Indridason. For example, which also commits period “from ninth century, we started novels – like Shadow trilogy which takes place between 1941 and 1944 or The king and the watchmaker which has the context of Denmark from the 18th century. Similarly, Diving in the story he makes as much by taste as by duty. Therefore, he explains to us at the end of March, when a new episode of the Konrad saga has just appeared.

The tomorrows that sing We plunge back into Iceland at the time of the Cold War. In addition, A period that your production regularly evokes. In addition, Did she score Iceland as much as you?

The Cold War was an era of very intense conflict in Iceland, between the Icelanders themselves. Furthermore, Iceland entered NATO in 1949, and then we cohabited with an American base for more than fifty years, until 2006. Furthermore, These two elements divided the nation “from ninth century, we started into two very distinct camps. There were constant demonstrations against the American presence. against belonging to NATO, and the whole had both political and economic and cultural consequences. I personally did not demonstrate, but the departure of the American army delighted me. On the other hand, I was not against the presence of Iceland in NATO. It was by drawing inspiration from this environment that I tried to write a new Icelandic historical spy novel. It was also the case with The lake man, Operation Napoleon et Duel.

Has this book involved a lot of research?

Yes, even if I remembered many things, since this atmosphere was lived on a daily basis. I notably reread the newspapers of the time, which is very easily found online. Lada’s traffic. for example, really existed, I also had a friend who had one at the “from ninth century, we started end of the race and who one day, at that time, brought it to the port where there were Russian trawlers. He went on the boat, discussed with the Russians. It looked like friends. They drank vodka, the Russians took the Lada, my boyfriend left with a bottle, both parties were delighted.

So Russian trawlers appeared like that, in the port of Reykjavik?

Trawlers, some of which were considered as spy boats. In Icelandic, this is called “shadow ships”. It still exists today. As I describe in the novel. the sailors of the Icelandic trawlers realized that something was wrong, it must be said that the Russians stationed in strange places, where there is no fish. The Icelanders know perfectly where the fish is … NATO. the American army had radar stations in several places in Iceland, and it said that these “from ninth century, we started so-called trawlers were used for the Russians to listen to the messages of the Americans, to monitor the comings and goings of ships, planes, submarines.

Iceland was a pawn in these influence games …

Due to its situation, Iceland necessarily had a very important strategic position. And everyone was aware of it. We knew perfectly well, for example, that it was not quite normal for the Soviet embassy to have 70 commercial advisers … And if no Icelanders practicing private espionage has been unmasked. we know that the Russians tried to recruit, it was reported by the press. Ditto for the presence of so-called trawlers. Icelandic citizens found it rather comical, in fact. Because it seemed to them completely ridiculous to spy in Iceland. I share this idea, hence this spy novel very far from James Bond. A key actor in history “from ninth century, we started is the herring export committee … It did exist, its members went regularly to Moscow, and they determined with the Russians the course of herring. What imagine “herring spies”! It is not at all surreal. Iceland had a lot of commercial links with the USSR, because of oil and coal, and the quantities exchanged were significant. Communist temptation was also a reality: at the time, many young Icelandic socialists, students, young idealists, left in Eastern Europe … and returned disenchanted.

Is this way of exhuming the past. to revisit it, is it a way of activating a collective memory, of questioning the Icelandic identity?

I have an insatiable curiosity for everything that is story, and not only the big one. I think Icelanders all ask themselves the question: but who are we? From the ninth century. we started telling stories, telling ourselves “from ninth century, we started our story, which was first transmitted orally, then, very quickly, we started to write it, to sleep on vellum. There was already in Icelanders this mania to record everything: all the events of daily life. but also the memory of the nation. This is the Icelandic sagas. And we continue today. These are no longer sagas. we no longer tell the colonization of Iceland or the battles of the beginning, but we write everything that happens to us. This obsession with wanting to keep memory. to list everything, to record, to leave a trace, comes from the fact that the Icelanders have long felt vulnerable. The nation has almost disappeared several times. For example. two hundred years ago, after the eruption of Laki in 1783, when the Danes had the idea of emptying Iceland and taking all its inhabitants to Denmark. We are a small nation, to the north, and “from ninth century, we started we have been threatened with extinction for a very long time. So, to avoid sinking into oblivion, yes, we write. It is a tradition that we hold from our distant ancestors. which began to write in the 11th and 12th centuries. And they wrote in Icelandic, not in Latin. Today, I contribute, in my own way.