Brother in Ice

by Alicia Kopf, Mara Faye Lethem (Translator)

Overview

“She thought that it was precisely when things get uncomfortable or can’t be shown that something interesting comes to light. That is the point of no return, the point that must be reached, the point you reach after crossing the border of what has already been said, what has already been seen. It’s cold out there.” This hybrid novel—part research notes, part fictionalised diary, and part travelogue—uses the stories of polar exploration to make sense of the protagonist’s own concerns as she comes of age as an artist, a daughter, and a sister to an autistic brother. Conceptually and emotionally compelling, it advances fearlessly into the frozen emotional lacunae of difficult family relationships. Deserved winner of multiple awards upon its Catalan and Spanish publication, Brother in Ice is a richly rewarding journey into the unknown.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781911508205
Publisher:	And Other Stories Publishing
Publication date:	06/05/2018
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Alicia Kopf, born Girona, 1982, holds degrees in Fine Arts and Comparative Literature. Brother in Ice is the culmination of an artistic cycle of several exhibitions entitled Àrticantàrtic, including a 2013 solo show in Barcelona, Seal Sounds Under The Floor. She has participated in many prestigious exhibitions. Her awards include the GAC-DKV Prize for best young artist gallery exhibition, the Premi Documenta literary prize, and the Premi Llibreter awarded by booksellers. Based between Barcelona and Brooklyn, Mara Faye Lethem translates from Catalan and Spanish. She has translated many contemporary novelists, and is a reviewer for the New York Times. Two of her translations were nominated for the 2016 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Read an Excerpt

Was it the poles I wanted to talk about? Or just the image of the snow that fascinates me? Instability, confusion, cold (it’s hot), determination. Sensations that were the constant companions of the polar explorers, as well as those of us who work with the blank white page. Because I’m not interested in the polar explorers in and of themselves, but rather in the idea of investigation, of seeking out something in an unstable space. I’d like to talk about all that as a metaphor, because what interests me is the possibility of an epic, a new epic, without foes or enemies; an epic involving oneself and an idea. Like the epic that artists and writers undertake.

Table of Contents

I Frozen Heroes

Poles 15

Symzonia 17

Matryoshka, or the Hollow Narrator Theory 20

Research Notes I 29

Honor and Recognition 31

Man in Ice 34

Cook 38

Below 41

Cook, Peary, and the Truth 43

S.O.S. Eisberg 45

The Frozen Explorers 47

Research Notes II 51

Zeppelin 52

Research Notes III 54

Atlas Crystal Works 56

Shackleton 60

Artificial Snow 63

Man in Ice II 68

The Heroic Age 70

Research Notes IV 72

Miss Boyd Land 74

The Continuity of Pools 78

The Icebreaker 80

Research Notes V 82

The Method 84

II Library Atop an Iceberg

The Fault 87

Research Notes VI 90

Ping-Pong 92

Research Notes VII 99

Leaving Home 103

The Gifts 109

Stalker 113

The Coldest Place 117

In Front of You 119

The Basement 123

Polar Vortex 125

Stagnation, Freezing, Rupture 127

April 131

R 132

Northward 134

July 136

October 21, 2014, Letter from the Antarctic 138

F 140

Searching for an Answer When the Uncertainty of it All Weighs Heavily 143

Advantages 144

After-Dinner Conversation 147

Spoiled Children 149

R's Closet 150

The Prize 152

Objects 154

Berglust 155

Black Mirror 157

A Trip to Antarctica 161

The Illogic of Arco 164

The Choreographer 169

Ice Blink 172

Paris 174

Rage and Thaw, Pyrenees Mini-Break 183

Mountain Refuge 188

Pills 191

Geyser 192

Did You Sleep Well? 199

White 205

Auditing 208

Ultima Thule 212

III Iceland Inner Geology

Lost Luggage 217

The Golden Circle 220

Thursday, August 27, Jökullsárlón National Park 225

Friday, August 28 227

Saturday, August 29 230

Sunday, August 30 235

Monday, August 31 236

Tuesday, September 1 241

Postscript 245

Selected Polar Bibliography 248

Acknowledgments 251

Editorial Reviews

"This is fast, fluid, exciting narrative; random, philosophical, alive, questioning, full of precise set pieces, sensations, regret, emotion, self-doubt, defiance, curiosity and a feel for history, fact and human behaviour . . . Brother in Ice is a living book and one to give your most discerning friends." Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

"Brother in Ice is actually a culmination of Alicia Kopf's art exhibitions. Prose weaves around line drawings, archival photos and diary entries, creating a style of writing that reassesses the seemingly arid and barren landscapes of frozen climes to instead encompass what Kopf describes as "live beings with voluptuous, nourishing forms".' Alexandra Kreese, The Story of Things podcast

"In another country this book would have changed the course of its history." Enrique Vila-Matas, author of The Illogic of Kassel

"As if by sleight of hand, Kopf displays a wide range of emotions before us. Like the Poles, they are constantly shifting, and inevitably epic." Agustín Fernández Mallo, author of Nocilla Dream "In an epistolic, polar update of Melville's Moby-Dick, Alicia Kopf's genre-defying book rises as clear and cold as an Arctic sea, floating with ideas that, like icebergs, are buoyed up by meaning and memory below their surface. This is an icy dissection of actuality and history, a frozen etymology of meaning. Slipping from Catalunya to the Ultima Thule, echoing a rapidly changing environment, Brother in Ice deals in personal retrieval and magical supposition in the whiteness of a disappearing world. In the process, it achieves a fugitive poetry all of its own.’ Philip Hoare, author of The Whale "A unconventional look at a world that makes [Kopf] feel uncomfortable . . . a text in which the feats of polar explorers give way to a central autobiographical story about the equally harsh and arid trips through family relationships and within oneself." El Pais "Simultaneously serious and light, incidental and yet trascendental." El Periodico "A book, part essay and part autobiography, that is also a chronicle of a generation stalled in a world without horizons or certainties . . . An unusual book and the deserving winner of the Premi Documenta literary prize." La Vanguardia

From the Publisher