Summary of Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow
“Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow” is a literary crime novel centred on the mysterious death of Isaiah, a young Greenlandic boy who fell from a rooftop in Copenhagen. Smilla, his neighbour, suspects foul play and believes that a Danish mining company extracting cryolite in Greenland may be involved. When the police dismiss the case, she embarks on her own investigation to uncover the truth. The second part of the novel takes her aboard an icebreaker ship bound for western Greenland.
Reasons to read Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow
“Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow” is more than just a page-turning detective novel. It addresses profound issues within Danish society, including the post-colonial treatment of Greenland and its people, drug abuse, alcoholism, and government corruption. The novel became an international bestseller, catapulting its author to literary fame in the 1990s, and is often regarded as a precursor to the ‘Nordic noir’ genre. It won the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger Award for Fiction in 1994 and was adapted into the film “Smilla’s Sense of Snow” in 1997. Peter Høeg also received the Golden Laurel (De Gyldne Laurbær) and the Danish Critics Prize for Literature for his novel “Borderliners” (Danish title: De måske egnede).
Setting: Copenhagen & Greenland (Denmark)
The novel is set in Denmark and Greenland. Smilla lives in Christianshavn, a district of Copenhagen, near Knippelsbro. The fictional Gela Alta is a small island off the west coast of Greenland.
Original title: Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne
Year of publication: 1992
Nr of pages: 416
