Land of Love and Ruins

"This is one of my favourite books, full stop. Fluid and endlessly questioning, this prize-winning work of autofiction explores how a woman finds and makes her place in the world and in relationship—with the earth, with kin, with lovers, with ancestors, and with her words—when capitalism is creeping in to commodify every blade of grass. The original title, Jarðnæði, is revealing when you consider that jarðnæði is a ‘farm tenancy’, and broken down, jarð means ‘earth’ and næði means ‘ease/peace/rest’. It suggests a way of belonging and tending to the earth without owning it. It appears to be an easy read. It is an easy read—short chapters, a breezy narrator—but this ease belies its complexity. Equally sensuous and intellectually curious, cumulatively Eir covers vast feminist philosophical territory while remaining grounded. It is written as a journal, marking solstices and equinoxes, feast days and celebrations, from a variety of cultures—from Icelandic ‘ Cream Puff Day’ to ‘Day of the Dead’ . Her stream of thought flits between apparently diverse subjects yet each sentence lays down a part of a mix that comes to feel like soil itself. Reading it, I was invited inside the mind and body of a fiercely intelligent woman who was at once incredibly laid back and concerned. I have pressed this book into so many hands."