Sarah Moss had a childhood dream of moving to
Iceland, sustained by a wild summer there when
she was nineteen. In 2009, she saw an
advertisement for a job at the University of
Iceland and applied on a whim, despite having
two young children and a comfortable life in
Kent. The resulting adventure was shaped by
Iceland's economic collapse, which halved the
value of her salary, by the eruption of
Eyjafjallajokull and by a collection of new
friends, including a poet who saw the only bombs
fall on Iceland in 1943, a woman who speaks to
elves and a chef who guided Sarah's family
around the intricacies of Icelandic cuisine.
Moss explored hillsides of boiling mud and
volcanic craters and learned to drive like an
Icelander on the unsurfaced roads that link
remote farms and fishing villages in the far
north. She watched the northern lights and the
comings and goings of migratory birds, and as
the weeks and months went by, she and her family
learned new ways to live.