Marjun Syderbø Kjelnæs

Marjun Syderbø Kjelnæs’ Skriva í sandin, 2010, Danish translation Skriv i sandet, 2012, is a realistic contemporary novel for young people. The novel's ten chapters tell the story of five girls and five boys aged 16 to about 18 whose lives become more or less interlinked during the two weekends and the intervening time covered in the novel. The book's main events are repeated several times, each time seen from a new person's perspective. Thus the significance of the events also changes time and again. The incidents which at first seem to lead up to a simple black-and-white interpretation, appear in the second and third replays seen from the new perspective, to be full of nuances and packed with contradictory details. This refined technique gives the novel material for an understanding of and insight into the characters. It provides a sensitive description of young people in Tórshavn, living in the global youth culture of music, fashion and lifestyle, but at the same time limited by the conditions set by local geography and culture. Going for a drive with friends with the music turned up full blast can only take so long on an island. The author assigns each person with a dominant trait leaning toward the stereotype - the don juan, the religious, the anorexic, the gay, the beauty etc. - but afterwards goes behind the stereotype, changes focus and shows us people as composite, unique individuals each with their own baggage of family background, past, feelings and dreams, strengths and weaknesses. It can be hard to stand by one’s self, if you belong to a minority. The author make the bold move of letting religion be an integrated if not contrast-free part of the realistic character description. By involving religion, one of the most indispensable parts of many people's lives and at the same time an isolated part of everyday life today, she significantly extends her description of reality. The novel's title, taken from the Bible verse about the words Jesus wrote in the sand and about letting he who is without sin cast the first stone, is linked in the novel to the gay young man who makes them his, while he considers his difficult situation.

Skriva í sandin with its suggestive, sober and convincing narrative voice, its clear, precise use of language and well thought out composition, is an important novel about and for the younger generation.

The author Marjun Syderbø Kjelnæs, born 1974, had her debut in a short story competition in 2000 and has since published a novel, a short story collection, a poetry collection, three children's books and written radio plays and a play. Skriv i sandet won the Nordic Children's Book Prize in 2011 and was nominated for the West Nordic children's book prize in 2012.