and can be bought here, – either as a paperback or a an e-book

Nanna Árnadóttir has written a brilliant book about a zombie apocalypse in Iceland, – Reykjavík, – vesturbær (to be exact). The book includes a Zombie apocalypse soundtrack, a zombie attack meatsoup and a lot of footnotes f.y.i. Here below is a column she wrote about writing the book in Iceland Review.

A Different Sort of Travel Manual

I first started thinking about how to survive a zombie apocalypse in Iceland years ago. Even before Max Brooks published his famous Zombie Survival Guide (essential reading for the paranoid Zombie Survivalist).

It all started with my father who taught me to love the horror film genre. I love all horror equally, of course, but there is something about zombies that I find a little more equal than the rest.

At first, my zombie survival fantasies began quite innocently. At 14, after I first watched Night of the Living Dead I wondered what place would be the best for surviving a zombie apocalypse.

The only answer I could come up with was Iceland.

From there things sort of evolved, every now and then I’d think about how best to navigate a zombie outbreak and I have made more than one reference to surviving a zombie apocalypse in Iceland in my Daily Lives over the years.

But by last year I was taking things to terrifying new heights.

I had picked up jogging in order to make sure that if a zombie outbreak did happen I would be able to outrun them.

My father and I had devised all sorts of Reykjavík zombie survival strategies and I came up with an iPod playlist with all the Icelandic music I thought would best suit an Icelandic zombie apocalypse.

It was around the end of November last year that I started writing, after a run down Aegisída. On the run I kept imagining that there was a swarm of zombies behind me. It was to help motivate me to keep going, to not slow down, or the Icelandic zombie swarm would get me!

When I came home, it was like a compulsion. I had to write out all this collective madness in my brain amassed over years of speculation.

At first I thought I’d just hand in a short story about a young woman running away from zombies for a creative writing class I was taking in conjunction with my masters.

But after I finished the designated five pages, I kept writing, and writing, and writing until suddenly, it was a novella about a group of Icelandic people, surviving a zombie outbreak in my neighborhood of Vesturbaer in the western part of Reykjavík.

I included my zombie apocalypse iPod playlist for those who love Icelandic music, footnotes to explain Icelandic history and culture and, of course, a good recipe for Icelandic kjötsúpa, an excellent and nutritious meal to weather any zombie storm.

So it’s not really a novel per se, but also almost a travel book, with nods to Icelandic life and where to go and what to see in Reykjavík.

Much to my surprise, OkeiBaekur, who publish the insanely talented Hugleikur Dagsson, actually like it and have offered to publish my madness. And so, because of that, you will be able to buy this zombie-meets-Icelandic-travel book as of July.

I don’t know how well this book of mine will do; after all, zombies aren’t to everyone’s taste. But for the people who do like zombies, who love zombies even, or the people who want to read a book about Iceland that’s a little out of the ordinary, I hope you’ll do me the honor of picking it up sometime.

No pressure.

Nanna Árnadóttir – nanna.arnadottir@gmail.com