The Underwear Factory

By Arndís Þórarinsdóttir

Life in Boxerville revolves around underwear. The underwear factory has loomed over the neighborhood since the dawn of the loincloth, which is why the world is turned upside down when news arrives that the factory has been closed after no longer being able to keep pace with the global underwear market.

Gutti and Ólina aren’t exactly friends. While Gutti is the most diligent child in school, Ólína is the most troublesome. Still, they set out together on that fateful day when Gutti determines to find out what has happened to his grandmother who seems to have disappeared after hearing the news. Ólina goes along because she can’t resist anything dangerous or forbidden. 

After entering the seemingly abandoned factory, the duo explores forgotten sections of the building. They discover a large colony of rabbits in a fabric store, a dysfunctional robot called Frillybottom 3000, a community of anarchist teenagers revelling in the lack of a phone signal, and a group of partying retirees hiding in the factory to avoid entering retirement homes. This last group directs Gutti to his missing grandmother who turns out to have secretly been running the factory single-handed since most human employees were replaced by machines. Turns out she has been sheltering the various misfits inhabiting the factory! Now, Gutti and Ólina must act to save the factory building and its inhabitants before it’s wrecked by a demolition crew that’s heading their way.
 
The Underwear Factory is the first book in the hilarious and unputdownable series about Boxerville, which is sure to make both children and adults laugh out loud.

Publishing information

About the author

Arndís Þórarinsdóttir (b. 1982) is an award-winning Icelandic writer and translator. Before becoming a full-time writer, Arndís worked as a journalist and critic and was the head of department at the library in Kópavogur. She has an undergraduate degree in Comparative Literature and a postgraduate degree in Creative Writing from the University of Iceland, and earned another postgraduate degree in Writing for Performance from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Arndís has also written short novels for an educational institution, published articles and stories in newspapers and magazines, worked on translations and performed various social activities related to literature.Arndís lives in Reykjavík with her husband and two children.