Streichhölzer

Ásta Sigurðardóttir (1930-1971) was an exceptional figure. Her first story in 1951, "Sunday Evening to Monday Morning," caused a stir as it did not fit into the tranquil Icelandic society. Throughout her life, marked by love affairs, pregnancies, and children, as well as copious amounts of alcohol and an unrestrained creative drive, Ásta found neither rest nor peace. The precision and radical nature of her stories, along with the linguistic brilliance of her writing, are all the more remarkable. Each of the 13 stories she wrote before her early death stands alone like a solitaire, radiating an almost uncanny sovereignty. Her characters do not belong to the classic literary repertoire; they are day thieves, young women unashamed of their sexual desires, timid children, and lonely aging ladies: damaged and overwhelmed existences driven by insatiable longing. Ásta Sigurðardóttir's tales offer a glimpse into everyday abysses, into hardening and futility, as well as into the brutality of circumstances. Their lurking threat arises from the fact that they describe omnipresent realities that are usually repressed and underestimated in their destructive power. Tina Flecken's translation impressively preserves the immediacy of the original. The stories effortlessly overcome linguistic and temporal distances, retaining their power and piercing us directly as they did in Iceland during the 1950s and 1960s. "Matches" finally allows for the delayed discovery of a great Icelandic author.