Feature each week: zombie nation

Following any sort of accident during the making of an electrical plant, a mysterious illness starts to spread, producing a zombie epidemic. Thus begins Zombie Iceland, the hilariously nasty debut novel by award-winning journalist Nanna Árnadóttir.

Printed within the No. 5 2011 October-December issue of Atlantica. By Ásta Andrésdóttir. Illustrations from Zombie Iceland by Hugleikur Dagsson and portrait thanks to Okeibækur.

zombienation_hd

“Zombie Iceland targets a tourist searching for something quite different using their travel experience of Iceland. Someone who would like to laugh and feel perhaps a little grossed out when they find out about the land of ice,” explains Árnadóttir, a self-confessed horror flick aficionado, as Atlantica catches track of her so that they can pick her brains. “It’s a travel book meaning that Icelandic culture, food, background and music are described in footnotes throughout but it’s still a singular… with zombies. It begins among the primary figures, Barbara, is running from a horde from the undead chasing her lower a seaside side road in Vesturbaer, Reykjavík. In the finish from the first chapter we rewind 24 hrs and follow Barbara, her brothers and sisters along with a couple of other misfits because they navigate an Icelandic zombie outbreak. It is supposed to be considered a zomedy, so it’s funny regardless of the gory zombie factor.”

Ásta Andrésdóttir: Why Zombies?

Nanna Árnadóttir: I watch lots of movies. This really is something people usually don’t admit to because apparently it’s a social taboo to make use of time you can spend as being a productive person in society sitting inside eating frozen treats and mix-stitching over [1990 comedy horror film] Frankenhooker. I believe the truth that it switched right into a zombie novel was pretty inevitable. I’ve thought lengthy and difficult on how to survive a spook apocalypse in Iceland. It essentially has the territory of loving horror movies, I believe. You begin contemplating such things as getting fit enough to hightail it from things hunting you, food reserves, bunkers and shovel-like weapons you could use to get rid of the undead but additionally to bury physiques. For most of us the will be running there, for other people, much like me, it spills into real existence.

ÁA: How did Zombie Iceland happen?

NÁ: Eventually I had been taking a run and imagined I had been being chased by zombies to prevent myself from quitting and walking home, and this is where the very first chapter from the book originated from. I’d adopted running to organize for that zombie apocalypse which is, incidentally, what i’m saying concerning the speculation spilling over into real existence. At that time I had been going for a creative writing class along with my M.A. in Journalism coupled with to hands inside a short story in the finish from the term. However, five pages switched into thirty and thirty pages switched right into a hundred. And So I just stored going until I’d a singular on my small hands.

Read the rest of this short article free of charge within the No. 5 2011 October-December issue of Atlantica, a sister publication of Iceland Review.

Resourse: http://icelandreview.com/magazine/2011/12/05/