Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

Editor's welcome

Welcome to Trafika Europe ! You hold in your (virtual) hands a new contribution in literary journal publishing – some of the best new writing from across Europe, side by side in English, available free online. What can such a window say about Europe, both as a whole and in its vibrant parts? Our focus for this inaugural quarterly issue is Europe's northern islands. More than half of the following pages plumb Europe's exotic north – enchanting and brooding, shrouded in sea and fog, with a history at once shared yet slyly remote. We've collected new writing from northern Scotland (including Gaelic and Scots), and from the Faroe Islands, Iceland and northern Norway; these pieces are marked with an asterisk (*) in the Table of Contents, which by the way you can click on to flip directly to any pieces. A notable aspect of what's being written today in northern Europe comes in concurrences of mood and outlook, reflecting these islands' overlapping geography, languages and history. One highlight, from the tiny culture of the Faroe Islands, is a healthy excerpt of Jóanes Nielson's The Brahmadells – A North Atlantic Chronicle . This is the first work from Faroese ever to receive a major international publishing contract, so it is the most important news of Faroese literature in our times. To celebrate its English