Sarah Edmonds
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/ 3 November 2006

Looking for elves in Iceland

We went looking for elves in Iceland. Belief in the unseen runs so high here that the Public Roads Administration sometimes delays or reroutes road construction to avoid what locals believe are elf habitations or cursed spots. Search ”elves” and ”Iceland” on Google and you get 846 000 hits, nearly triple Iceland’s population.

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/ 12 October 2006

Orhan Pamuk wins 2006 Nobel prize for literature

Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s best-known novelist and incendiary social commentator, won the 2006 Nobel prize for Literature on Thursday. In its citation for the 10-million Swedish crown (,36-million) prize, the Swedish Academy said: ”In the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city, [Pamuk] has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures.”