Translation, Fiction, adaptation? The Short Story “Guest” in The Axe’s Edge by Kristjana Gunnars.

Abstract

The works of Kristjana gunnars resist boundaries, as tends to be the case in postmodern works that test generic flexibility, questioning literary traditions, narrative methods, ideas and values. gunnars is Icelandic but has written in English and lived in Canada for all of her writing career. She has gained recognition as a versatile and prolific writer and has been variously rewarded for original and compelling work. The Axe’s Edge (1983) is a collection of interconnected short stories that exemplifies gunnars’ valorization of hybridity, as well as her efforts to have the medium fit the message. The first and the last stories are set in Iceland and frame the rest of the stories, set in north america. I analyse one of the stories, “guest”, as representative of her reconsideration of (his)story in the book as a whole. The story is a pastiche of identifiable cultural and historical narratives, using a story from new Iceland as the narrative frame but weaving through it passages from a book on Icelandic folklore as well as Canadian nature lore. gunnars, in other words, treats the basic story as palimpsest where (her)story needs to be recovered, balancing her writing upon the edge of rewriting and original composition, academic and creative methods, translation and adaptation, and speaking in different voices to different groups of readers when she disseminates Icelandic-Canadian history and culture, adding Icelandic voices to Canadian story.