Helgason’s latest novel, the prize winning “Sixty Kilos of Sunshine”, is out in Germany, published by Tropen Verlag, and translated by Karl-Ludwig Wetzig. Hailed as a “masterpiece” by the Icelandic critics it received the Icelandic Literature Prize in 2018. German is the the first foreign language it is published in. The novel tells the tale of a poor farmer’s son, Gestur, his orphan childhood, his quest for a better life and thirst for recognition. Born at the end of the 19th century, when Iceland was the poorest and most difficult country in Europe, he witnesses the dawn of modernity in the first years of the 20th century. After a 1000 years of solitude the Icelandic nation wakes up to new possibilities as the Norwegians arrive and start the herring “gold rush” that changes Icelandic society forever.