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Dwarves and Hyperborea (Islandski bedeker: Patuljci i Hiperboreja) is a contemporary novel by Ljiljana Maletin Vojvodić, inspired by modern-day Reykjavik, the Icelandic art scene, Viking-age sagas, and the ancient Greek myth of Hyperborea. It also draws heavily on the work of renowned Serbian author Miloš Crnjanski (1893–1977), particularly his texts Among the Hyperboreans and Sumatra.

The story follows a Serbian woman writer who travels to Reykjavik, exploring how an artist from the Balkans encounters Icelandic culture and society. The novel is also a lyrical meditation on a city of artists and dreamers, where creativity is a way of life. It references Björk, Sigur Rós, modern art, trendy cafés and bars, thermal pools, harbor walks, Mount Esja, the northern lights, a colony of elves—and, of course, Hyperborea.

“I write about this fascinating nation on the edge of European culture—its obsession with computer games and social networks, but also about the University of Dwarves, and how proud Icelanders are of their sagas, geysers, education, independence, and democracy.

I mention Icelandic landscapes, Björk, Sigur Rós, and how these contemporary Vikings remain deeply traditional—yet host a Gay Pride parade every August. I write about the miracles possible in this land of ice, and how no one ever talks about politics.

I note how astronaut Neil Armstrong walked across lava fields in Iceland to prepare for the Moon landing; how Tolkien’s children’s nannies were Icelandic; how a medieval Saga of Öðinn tells of a magical ring with the power to rule the world; how buildings house addicts and the elderly swim daily in public pools. I observe how people ignore celebrities, and I marvel at it all.”

— Ljiljana Maletin Vojvodić

Afterword by Dr. Vasa Pavković:

“Some believed that the advent of new technologies and the ‘global village’ would kill the travel novel. Fortunately, this didn’t happen, and Ljiljana Maletin Vojvodić’s Dwarves and Hyperborea is proof.
Blending the timeless forms of travel diary and journal, the author has created a poetic portrait of a country that is in many ways the opposite of Serbia—a land of ancient sagas and high technology, of artists, geysers, glaciers, volcanoes, and dreams.

In her Icelandic odyssey, Maletin Vojvodić’s reflections move beyond the personal to become a universal experience, a meditation on place, identity, and transformation.

Dwarves and Hyperborea evokes the northern lights, Björk and Sigur Rós, snow and silence, poetry and myth, memory and the present.”

Note: Hyperborea was a mythical land of eternal spring located in the far north, beyond the reach of winter. Its people lived long, happy lives, untouched by war, old age, or disease. The myth of Hyperborea—“beyond the north wind”—runs deep in the collective unconscious of many Indo-European cultures.

HYPERBOREA

What influences you?
People, stories, music, love, hate. I’m easily influenced!

Crnjanski and Hyperborea. Björk. Medúlla! The ocean. A land of glaciers, volcanoes, and a deeply emotional landscape. Northern icy melancholy. Colorful houses. Metal façades. Minimalism. Restraint. The absence of kitsch.
My personal myth.

INVITATION

Dear applicant,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been offered a guest residency for the period of December 2006. You will also receive an official letter by post. Please confirm your acceptance as soon as possible. We apologize for the delay in responding to applications due to unforeseen circumstances.

On behalf of the team,
Iduna Tordottir

DOUBT

I can’t believe it! I will see Iceland!
Will I walk in the land of pagan poetry and the Northern Lights?
I’m afraid something or someone might ruin my dream. These days, I feel nervous, unsettled by what’s to come. Iceland is my long-desired Hyperborea, my New Jerusalem—and I fear that something might shatter it all.

LITERATURE

I begin searching for Icelandic literature, anything I can find related to the language or its literary tradition. I reread old notes and am surprised to find comments in my own handwriting that I don’t even remember writing. Had I really read about Snorri Sturluson?

The parts about the sagas interest me the most. I try to recall more, but everything I read feels too general, encyclopedic, and shallow.
I go to the public library.
“Icelandic literature? Unfortunately, we don’t have anything,” the typically indifferent librarian replies.
I keep searching and eventually find a book titled Icelandic Literature. I pick up Icelandic Fairy Tales (ironically labeled “Islamic” by mistake), Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, and works by Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness and Gunnar Gunnarsson.

In a local bookstore, I buy Sjón’s The Blue Fox and Ólafsson’s A Long Journey into the Night.
Sjón’s writing, though poetic, is dense and difficult to read—much like Laxness and Gunnarsson.
Ólafsson’s novel, however, speaks to me. Instead of postmodern erudition, I find emotion and storytelling—what I’ve been missing in modern literature.

Still, Iceland remains distant and elusive. My search continues.

TO TRAVEL IS TO LIVE?

Do our travels touch the essence of life—or are they just a subconscious escape from ourselves and our frustrating daily routines?

The destinations I’ve chosen, and how I’ve experienced them, have evolved with age, financial means, and life circumstances.
As a child, I traveled with my parents—enjoying the green-blue Adriatic waters, the scent of pine trees, and learning to swim on the Croatian coast.
My first trip abroad: shopping in Trieste. A few hours of frantically buying Levi’s jeans and rainbow-colored chewing gum.
I remember wild high school trips across former Yugoslavia (Sarajevo – Dubrovnik – Đerdap!), where all we cared about was who was dating whom and who got the drunkest.

During the 1990s wars, amid inflation and exit taxes, when my salary was a few Deutsche Marks, I went on cheap tours to Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Montenegro.
Later, with a few hundred euros in my pocket and new visa requirements from the EU, I couldn’t afford to wait any longer.
Like many people in my country, I found side jobs to earn more and traveled with G.—across Western Europe, parts of Africa, and Asia.
People, languages, art, train stations—they became part of me, made me more open. Traveling stopped being about geography and became a way of discovering the new and unfamiliar.

Despite all introspective doubts about why I was traveling, I started to enjoy it.
G. and I traveled whenever we could. Avoiding agencies and tourist traps, we sought real life.

In Cairo, we found ourselves among ancient tombs in the Forbidden City of the Dead.
In Tunisia, we traveled by train with locals, surrounded by the heavy smell of exhausted, dreaming bodies.
In Pompeii, we endured 40°C heat in an overheated car.
We drove three sleepless days to Denmark.
We walked for hours to reach the ancient library of Ephesus.
In Moscow, we hunted for hidden galleries, only to discover our online information was false.
In St. Petersburg, we stayed near the house where Dostoyevsky once lived.
From the hotel window, we watched today’s “humiliated souls,” and in the thick walls we felt the archetypal pain of that beautiful city.

After the pyramids, British museums, and a month of Parisian dolce vita, I thought nothing could surprise me anymore.
Then I remembered a scene from TV: Björk, singing, gazing over the ocean at an unreal landscape.
I thought: Iceland! Distance. Peace. Sumatra!
And somehow, despite expected and unexpected obstacles, everything worked out—
application sent, residency accepted, plane tickets booked.
We were finally going to Hyperborea.

VISAS

I try to forget the Kafkaesque ordeal three months earlier at the Danish Embassy.
We—insignificant citizens—with bags full of documents;
She—the VIP embassy clerk.

– Passports?
– Two photos?
– Passport copies?
– Invitation letter?
– Flight reservations?
– ID and health cards?
– Employment history?
– Employer’s confirmation?
– Paid leave?
– M1-M2 forms?
– Pension insurance confirmation?
– Proof of property ownership?
– Income? Other income?
– Credit cards? Bank statements?
– Proof of paid taxes?
– Financial means for staying in the EU?
– International health insurance?

This was our first major border: bureaucratic Europe, reminding us how small we are. Miss Schengen herself.

I don’t want to remember the official selection process, the sluggish Icelandic organizers, the cheap flights, or the stress about our jobs.
I don’t want to recall the 75-day wait for a visa—despite our official invitation. The Danish Embassy, responsible for Iceland’s consular affairs in Serbia, said nothing. Nothing!

And then one day, ten days before our flight, I heard her voice—Her Majesty, the embassy clerk:

– Your visas have been approved. You can pick up your passports tomorrow.

(Of course, the next day there was a power outage at the embassy and everything was postponed… but those one-month European tickets couldn’t escape us.)

SMOKEY BAY

We stepped onto Icelandic pavement and began our first walk.
Whether from exhaustion, darkness, or the air, the surroundings felt surreal and incomprehensible.
It was as if I were living someone else’s life. As if I no longer existed in my own identity. Someone else’s steps, someone else’s body, someone else’s thoughts.

We wandered through a clean, idyllic part of the old town.
No tall buildings, no ruined façades, no kiosks.
Just charming, colorful little houses, cozy cafés, and small shops.

ONTOLOGICAL CONSOLATION

We went to a nearby beach.

The cold air rushed into my nostrils and straight into my lungs, freezing them.
The landscape looked unreal, irrational—a hyperbolic mix of dreams, desires, and eternity.

Frozen yellow-green moss, black volcanic rocks, red soil, a lonely house in the distance, and the powerful, icy ocean.
We found peace. A paradise for dreamers and visionaries.
An openness to melancholy and the sound of the northern wind.
The gentle peaks of Mount Esja.

I felt Hyperborea. And Crnjanski. A lyrical utopia. Ontological consolation.

At last, I understood:

If we grieve a pale figure lost one evening,
we know that, somewhere, a crimson rivulet flows in its place.

I put on my headphones and played Björk—Jóga and Pagan Poetry.

RETURN

With ashes on my head, repentant and wrapped in the silent joy of return, I suddenly find myself in the open air, thousands of meters above the ground.
I’ve shed my colorful, cosmopolitan feathers and touched down at Belgrade Airport—as if I’d come home.
Danilo Kiš.

It’s our third landing today. My head is under intense pressure.
A sharp pain flares above my eyebrow.
Am I having a stroke?

My painful, literary encounter with Serbia begins right here—in the skies above this “holy land.”
The physical pain overwhelms any thoughts of confrontation.
I can’t stand it. It feels like my head is about to split open.

— What does a heart attack feel like? Does it hurt? — I ask G.
— What’s wrong with you? — G. replies, worried.
— I don’t know… It feels like someone is slicing open my eyebrow with a knife—but it won’t separate from my face.

THIS IS THE END

73.1% of people in Novi Sad have never been to the theatre.
84.1% have never entered a library or visited an exhibition.
Less than 5% have attended a panel discussion or a book launch.
(Source: a marketing agency specializing in public opinion polls.)

Three months after our Iceland trip, I stumbled upon a poster at the Cultural Centre in Novi Sad:
„Norse Selection – A Series of Scandinavian Films.“
I stare at the program in disbelief.
There it is—an Icelandic film! Screaming Masterpiece!
A music documentary featuring Björk and Sigur Rós.

All week, I felt a quiet, festive excitement.
Wearing a T-shirt with Iceland’s coat of arms, I arrived that Saturday evening in front of a deserted cinema in the city center.

Aside from one elderly man—who also asked about the same film—there was no one.
Although this is a familiar scene in Novi Sad’s cinemas, I still looked around, hoping for someone, anyone, to appear.

— Where are all the people who used to crowd this Cultural Centre in the 1980s? — I kept asking myself.

After ten minutes, the young man from the Cultural Program whispered something to the old man, then approached me:

— The film’s been canceled. There were problems with distribution. We only sold two tickets, he said.

— But you can watch Letters from Iwo Jima. Clint Eastwood is excellent.

(translated by David Ratcliff)