Seal Woman - by Solveig Eggerz (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published: Denver, Colo.: Ghost Road Press, 2008.

Book Synopsis

Having answered a Berlin newspaper advertisement for "strong women who can cook and do farm work," Sophie Charlotte finds herself married with two sons on an Icelandic sheep farm, trying to sever cords of memory that lead back to the powerful love she knew in Germany and all that she lost there. When World War II began, Charlotte was attached to a supremely talented but politically furious painter in Berlin. But she would lose him twice: first to the resistance and then to the camps. More wounding for Charlotte, however, is the unforgiving trace of their daughter, Lena, who at five years old tragically disappeared into the chaos of the War.

This is an extraordinarily beautiful saga that links sure-footed portraits of wartime Berlin and the severity of life in the Icelandic countryside. Moving and genuinely affirming, Seal Woman is a many-colored portrayal of a strong woman's life broken in two stark and unforgiving worlds separated by the North Atlantic.

Review Quotes

Seal Woman was a finalist for The Eric Hoffer Award.

It won the first prize for fiction from the Maryland Writer's Association.

"I found this book almost impossible to put down. It moves seamlessly with a quiet kind of beauty; Charlotte's secrets will haunt you for a long time." -- Robert Bausch

"In this fierce and poignant novel, Solveig Eggerz deftly transports her readers between Germany and Iceland as her heroine struggles to come to terms with her past and her present. ... A beautiful and suspenseful debut." -- Margot Livesey

"A wonderfully written story about the triumph of love, strength, and art over crippling loss." -- Barbara Esstman

"Solveig Eggerz takes us to a littoral world where ancient legend touches everyday life as surely and constantly as the North Sea meets the coast of Iceland. Carrying the unwieldy grief and hope of a wartime past, the novel's heroine finds her own rough grace, beauty, and possibility of transformation in the new land she chooses to inhabit. A moving and contemporary story rewoven ion a mythic pattern." -- Dan Yashinsky

About the Author

A native of Iceland, Solveig Eggerz spent her early childhood there, but then her family also lived in Germany, England and the U.S. She has a Ph.D. in medieval English, German, and Scandinavian comparative literature from Catholic University. An accomplished writer, she has worked as a journalist and as a professor of writing and research, and she currently teaches creative writing in the D.C. area.

Solveig has a family history of writing and storytelling: "I've carried the stories my forefathers told in my heart all my life. My great-great grandfather, Friðrik Eggerz, a farmer and a protestant minister, wrote his autobiography when he was in his eighties, a book that documented 19th century Icelandic regional history; my grandfather, Sigurður Eggerz, twice prime minister, wrote plays and essays. My father, Pétur Eggerz, a foreign service officer, was a best-selling author in Iceland and wrote fiction and nonfiction until the day he died at age 80."