He barely opens the door, just enough to
see the foot of the bed over by the window. He hears shuffling, as if someone
were pacing the floor. Did she get up? Before he has time to think any further,
he sees the back of a man; he is holding something in his arms and seems to be
dancing. When the man turns, he recognizes him.
It is his father gazing down into his arms,
like someone hugging a newborn to their chest. His mother is swaddled in a
blanket. It strikes Rani that she probably hardly weighs a thing now. He
watches them for a long time, sees them disappear into the room, then float
back out towards the window ‘In a flood of light I shall dance...’’
This is an excerpt from a new Faroese book
of teenage fiction. The stories take place over a weekend in Tórshavn. The one
above is about a grief-stricken boy, whose mother is in hospital with cancer.
He is one of the ten teenagers portrayed in the book, each from their own angle.
Literary critics have unanimously heralded it as a groundbreaking innovation in
Faroese teenage fiction, both as regards its themes and the nimble fluid
language use.