Peter Høeg’s classic thriller introduces Smilla Qaavigaaq Jaspersen, a woman of Greenlandic Inuit heritage living in Copenhagen, whose intimate understanding of ice and snow leads her to suspect a young boy’s death was no accident. The investigation pulls her from Denmark back to the vast, frozen landscapes of her homeland.
The novel masterfully explores themes of cultural displacement and post-colonial tension, using the intricate properties of snow as a metaphor for the mysteries hidden beneath the surface of Danish-Greenlandic relations.
Set in the late 18th century, this historical epic follows Morten Falck, a Danish missionary who travels to Greenland filled with ideals but unprepared for the brutal realities of colonial life. Kim Leine confronts the hypocrisy of the Danish mission, vividly portraying the clash between European religion and Inuit shamanism.
Greenland itself is a powerful force in the novel, its unforgiving environment mirroring the spiritual and moral decay of the colonists and providing a stunning backdrop for a story of faith, corruption, and survival.
Jane Smiley’s magnificent historical novel chronicles the lives of Norse settlers in 14th-century Greenland, adopting the style of the Icelandic sagas to tell an epic story of a society’s slow decline.
The novel depicts the settlers' struggle to maintain their European ways against a changing climate, diminishing resources, and increasing isolation from their homeland. More than a story of survival, it is a profoundly human drama about faith, family, law, and the tragedy of a lost colony, shaped by Greenland's powerful and indifferent landscape.
The first volume in William T. Vollmann’s ambitious Seven Dreams series, The Ice Shirt blends Norse sagas, Inuit mythology, and historical accounts to reimagine the Viking voyages to Greenland and North America.
The narrative vividly captures the moment of first contact, exploring the cultural misunderstandings and violent clashes between the Norse explorers and the indigenous peoples they encountered. Greenland is the dramatic stage for this collision of worlds, rendered through Vollmann's dense, lyrical prose.
This gripping Nordic noir thriller is set in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, where a mummified Norseman is discovered in the ice. When journalist Matthew Cave begins investigating, he uncovers a modern-day murder with connections to the island’s dark past and hidden rituals.
Mads Peder Nordbo uses the crime genre to explore the complexities of contemporary Greenland, from its social problems and political tensions to the lingering power of Inuit legends in a rapidly modernizing society.
Written by Greenlandic author Niviaq Korneliussen, this groundbreaking novel offers a vital, contemporary portrait of life in Nuuk. Told through the interconnected stories of five young Greenlanders, the book explores identity, sexuality, and the search for belonging in a community caught between tradition and globalized modernity.
Korneliussen's raw, energetic prose shatters stereotypical images of the Arctic, presenting a Greenland that is vibrant, complex, and utterly of the moment, as its characters navigate love, heartbreak, and family.
While Carsten Jensen’s epic novel spans the globe, a significant and visceral part of its narrative is rooted in Greenland. Following the lives of sailors from the Danish port town of Marstal over a century, the story details their perilous voyages into the Arctic for fishing and trade.
Jensen portrays Greenland not as a distant colony, but as a place that fundamentally shapes the destiny of the Danish characters through its immense dangers and stark opportunities, directly linking the prosperity and tragedy of a Danish town to the Greenlandic ice.