On Time and Water was published in Icelandic October 4th and has been on the top of the bestselling list in Iceland for four weeks by now.

This fall I have been performing as well a “one man show”, a lecture/performance/talk on the main stage of the Reykjavík City Theatre. Tthe first four performances have been sold out and at least two more are planned in Novemberl. With me on stage is the highly talented Högni Egilsson and a children’s quire from Kópavogur performing two pieces specially made by Högni for this show.

The Time and Water project has been going on for some years while I have been writing the book, it has evolved through lectures, talks and discussion in universities around the world.

Time and Water has now been sold to 14 publishers worldwide, (was seven when this article was written) so it will be published 2020 in English, German, French, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Hungarian to name a few.

During the next 100 years we expect to see a fundamental change of all the elements of water on our planet. Many glaciers will melt and the sea levels will rise at a faster rate than humans have seen before. Acidification will bring the oceans to a pH level not seen in 30 million years. Patterns of rain and snow will change dramatically in most areas. We could say that nature has stopped changing in geological speed but has entered human speed. This extreme shift is larger than any metaphor or any words or language we are used to.Just like the huge gravity of a black hole makes it invisible, you could say that the issues we are faced with are so large that they swallow all words and meaning. We hear words like “climate change” but for most people they are just white noise, 99% of the real meaning is not included in our imagination. To describe a black hole you look at the surrounding galaxies and to understand these issues Andri weaves a web of stories from mythology, to crocodile research in the Amazon to his grandmother’s honeymoon on Europe’s largest glacier, to our understanding of our intimate time. We are faced with the almost impossible task of cutting carbon emissions to zero in 2050 according to newest studies. The question is – are we too late to do something? What can actually be done in 30 years? This calls for nothing less than a new scientific revolution, projects on the scale of the Manhattan project, new paradigms and a new approach to almost everything done in the 20th century.

Here is a good podcast to get some insight into the diverse body of work by Andri Snær Magnason.