A New York Times Globetrotting Pick Winner of the Icelandic Literature Prize and Longlisted for France’s Prix Médicis Étranger, a profound and playful masterwork of literature from one of Iceland’s most beloved authors which explores the dreams and desires of ordinary people in a rural town. "Wistful and whimsical. . . . Stefánsson's writing is fertile, yielding extraordinary imagery. There are many tears in these stories and in this village, but there is also hope, because even unfulfilled dreams offer guidance, 'they evaporate and settle like dew in the sky, where they transform into the stars in the night.’”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “The Icelandic Dickens. . . . He has the same gift of writing with great understanding, an empathy with troubled souls, and a skill at laugh-out-loud comedy.”—Irish Examiner