A Habitable World

Lance Nixon on Down Syndrome & the Wisdom of God

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.

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Lance Nixon is a freelance writer based in Pierre, South Dakota, where he attends virtual services of New Life Assembly of God Church and also visits Trinity Episcopal Church virtually. He is also a fiction writer, and his latest stories about the Great Plains appeared in the November 2020 and November 2019 issues of Gray's Sporting Journal.

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