Nordic Book Club: Herostories

Read and discuss literature with our Nordic Book Club Online! On September 10 in coordination with this month’s Taste of Iceland festival, we’ll be discussing Herostories, a work from Icelandic poet-historian Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir composed from the memoirs and biographies of 100 Icelandic midwives, out now in translation by K.B. Thors from Deep Vellum.

Herostories reveals tales untold by most history books: the harrowing journeys and vital triumphs of 19th- and 20th-century midwifery in the vast landscape of Iceland. Forgoing traditional sagas of androcentric conquest, these poems center the adventures of ljósmæður, “mothers of light.” Tómasdóttir leverages epic elements—dashing mountain treks, rivers forded on horseback, unyielding compassion—to challenge how and by whom stories become legend. Beyond archival recognition, the text’s formally ambitious poetics render gender-based battles for literacy and education alongside narratives of selfless womanly caretaking, pressurizing the fundamental tensions between feminine self-actualization and the romanticized service of these trailblazing figures.

The follow-up to Tómasdóttir and Thors’ award-winning, PEN-nominated Stormwarning, Herostories documents the professional achievements of Iceland’s first women to work outside the home, precursors to today’s midwives who remain central to contemporary health care on the island.