In Joanne Harris’s novel The Gospel of Loki, Loki is the first-person narrator.
Published in 2014, the novel retells major episodes of Norse mythology from Loki’s own perspective. He describes his recruitment to Asgard, his relationships with the gods, his schemes, and the growing conflict that leads toward Ragnarök. This viewpoint makes the traditionally troublesome trickster the storyteller who frames the entire account.
Harris draws on medieval Norse material but uses contemporary prose and a strongly characterized narrative voice. The novel is therefore a literary adaptation rather than a translation of the Poetic Edda or Prose Edda.
The title echoes the language of a personal testimony, but Loki’s account is intentionally self-serving. Readers should distinguish the novel’s witty first-person presentation from the more compressed and ambiguous portraits found in the original myths.