Since his novel ‹101 Reykjavík› (Klett-Cotta, 2002) Hallgrímur Helgason (*1959) has been regarded as a cult author. Moreover, he is also a cartoonist for an Icelandic newspaper, an internationally successful visual artist, and has been a stand up comedian. In his current novel ‹Seasick in Munich› (Klett-Cotta, 2015) the main character is cast away from the idyllic island, into the middle of the cold war: he comes to Munich to study, and now wakes up every morning with the fear, that the third world war has already started. The hero cannot speak a single word of German, does not know beer, and is only sure of one thing: he wants to be an artist. But then it turns out that he has a strange gift, rendering him slightly unappetising. «The characters Helgason invents are a rare splendour. One immediately falls for his crackingly absurd fantasy.» (Spiegel)