DRÁPA

In the frozen January of 1988, Gré,ta Birgisdó,ttir, 26-year-old resident of Reykjaví,k, Iceland, was murdered by her husband, the boxer Bragi Ó,lafsson. Bragi claimed the murder was an accident. The couple had been drinking for four days when a physical argument broke out. In the end Bragi strangled Gré,ta with ropes before going to sleep again.Ten years later, celebrated Icelandic writer Gerð,ur Kristný interviewed Bragi in the very apartment where the crime had taken place. This novel-poem, which takes its form from Old Norse shield poetry and its mood from modern Nordic crime, is the product of that interview