A Northern Light in Provence

A woman leaves her coastal Greenland village to translate the works of an elderly Provençal poet and finds her life irrevocably changed in this tender and romantic novel set in a French village.

Ilse Lund is a translator who lives in a house on stilts along the west coast of Greenland. Isolated in her world by the sea, and restless, she convinces her publisher to pay for a trip to the country whose language she translates but has never visited—France. Her mission: to translate the verses of Geoffrey Labaye, an elderly poet known as “the last living troubadour of Provence.” 

Upon arrival in the medieval hilltop village of Beau Rivière, Ilse falls under the spell of the Provençal way of life--and the charming French poet. She becomes captive to the air, the sun, the vibrant spring colors, and the dulcet sounds of the Provençal dialect. And soon enough, Ilse is captive to the poet, too, as she and Labaye develop a daily rhythm, about words and much else. Their warm camaraderie is disturbed, however, when the poet’s son Frey shows up. Though he has a fiancée back in Paris, Frey turns his attention on Ilse, and suddenly she is forced to learn another language, one her translation skills have not prepared her to decode.  With whom and where does her future lie?

With an eye and ear attuned to the sensibilities of French life, Elizabeth Birkelund has created a love story about a woman forced to choose between the security of her quiet northern home and possibly the life of her dreams.