The Icelandic poet and author Sjón won the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize in 2005 for his novel Skugga-Baldur, translated into English as The Blue Fox, and probably he deserves it. Skugga-Baldur is a quick gallop of a yarn that makes use of the traditional Icelandic theme of the shape-shifter in lean, laconic prose.
There may actually be two shape-shifters at work here—one as a device in the story, and one in the way science is transformed under Sjón’s hands into a benevolent, almost moral force for good that affirms human worth.