Animal Life

"A beautiful, luminous novel that goes straight to the heart of life" Rebecca Wait, author of I'm Sorry You Feel That Way

"Charming, funny and deeply wise... brought me nose to nose with the earthy, transcendent business of pregnancy and birth" Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness

"Quirky, elusive and unique" Nick Bradley, author of The Cat and The City

"One of those small stories that manages to feel very big indeed" Bobby Palmer, author of Isaac and the Egg

With just over a week until Christmas, Dómhildur delivers her one thousandth, nine hundred and ninety second baby. Beginnings and endings are her family trade; she is a midwife descended from a long line of midwives on her mother's side and a long line of undertakers on her father's.

There's a terrible storm heading towards Reykjavík, and Dómhildur is feeling unsettled. In her apartment, she stumbles across decades' worth of letters and manuscripts hidden amongst the clutter that belonged to her grandaunt- a legendary midwife with a reputation for unconventional methods. At the darkest point of the year, when the sun barely lifts above the horizon, Dómhildur discovers strange and beautiful new meanings in her grandaunt's writings.

For even in the depths of an Icelandic winter, new life will find a way.

Praise for Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

"Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir's specialty is the small journeys we make in order to save ourselves and the ones we care for. She is the heart's finest map-maker" Sjón

"I'm going to read all of [her] novels" Megan Hunter, author of The Harpy

"Ólafsdóttir's writing is at once profoundly Icelandic… and universal... Her authorial voice is immediate and intimate" Financial Times



Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir is a prize-winning novelist, playwright and poet. Audur Ava's novels have been translated into over 25 languages, and they include Butterflies in November, Hotel Silence and Miss Iceland, also published by Pushkin Press. Hotel Silence won the Nordic Council Literature Prize, the Icelandic Literary Prize, and was chosen Best Icelandic Novel in 2016 by the booksellers in Iceland. Miss Iceland won the Prix Médicis Étranger and the Icelandic Booksellers Prize. Audur Ava lives in Reykjavik.