This is a story about love, sensuality and sex. About the Icelandic countryside, poetry and the desire to know the world. About children, those kept by their parents and those raised by strangers. About life and death. And Ásta.

The Story of Ásta is told by a dying man, Sigvaldi. He and Helga, Ásta’s parents, chose her name – “love” in Icelandic – while she was still in the womb after they read Independent People by Halldór Laxness. Sigvaldi, a writer, has now fallen down a ladder and is lying on the pavement.

Sigvaldi’s life flows through his mind. His wife Helga, wild and poetic, ran away from a mundane life in Reykjavik, leaving their two daughters to the foster-care system. Ásta is their youngest.