We travel to Iceland with its first lady on International Women's Day

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2022

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

There is an Icelandic word, sprakkar, that means outstanding women - and those women are at the heart of the book Secrets Of The Sprakkar: Iceland's Extraordinary Women And How They Are Changing The World. Iceland's first lady and author, Eliza Reid, interviewed women from all walks of life to find out what makes being a woman in Iceland so great. Reid told NPR's Leila Fadel that not everyone knows Iceland has topped the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Equality Index for the past 12 years, so she set out to change that.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong.
0:05.9	Do you ever fantasize about just packing up all your stuff and bouncing to a different country?
0:12.1	Just close your eyes and picture a wildly unrealistic and overly romanticized life in whatever country of your choice.
0:20.2	If you do partake in this hobby, next time,
0:22.9	try picturing Iceland. By certain metrics, it seems like a pretty sweet place to live,
0:28.5	particularly if you're a woman. Why that is is the subject of today's interview. It's with
0:33.4	Eliza Reed, Iceland's first lady. She interviewed Icelandic women from all walks of life
0:38.6	about what their lives are like and what the country does to make it that way. Then she wrote a book
0:43.4	about what she learned called Secrets of Sprakar. And her conversation with NPR's Lela Faddle
0:48.2	starts with her explaining what that last word actually means. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:57.7	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.
1:02.2	On our new show, Sources and Methods.
1:04.2	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people
1:07.5	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:11.8	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:17.6	We're going to take a moment now to teach you a word in Icelandic. It's an important one to know.
1:22.8	Ready? The word is Sprakhar. It means outstanding women.
1:28.7	And what I love about it is that if you can think in English of all of the words we have to describe only women, I can't think of any that are positive.
1:37.4	And this is a really positive word.
1:39.8	Oh, yeah, no, I didn't think about it.
1:41.4	And now that I am thinking about it, yeah, I can't think of one.
1:44.8	I know. So, so welcome. I'm providing Sprakar to the English language from Iceland.
	...

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