Author: Björn Halldórsson - The Reykjavik Grapevine

‘Öræfi’ And ‘CoDex 1962’ Nominated For BTBA Best Translated Book Award

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Two Icelandic novels are nominated for this year’s Best Translated Book Award. The longlist for the award was announced this…

Sensibility is a Muscle: Turkish author Hakan Günday brings his love of language

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With his eighth novel, “More,” published by Arcade, Hakan Günday entered the relatively small group of contemporary Turkish authors whose…

The Terror of the Metaphysical: Iain Reid Represents His Niche

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Over the past few years, Canadian author Iain Reid has seen rising success after the publication of his first novel…

Sketches in the Sand: Rán Flygenring On Birds, Art And Play

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Recently, the niche market of Icelandic-bird-guides-in-English gained a new addition in the form of “BIRDS,” a translation of Hjörleifur Hjartarson…

Iceland Guest Of Honour At Gdansk Book Fair

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This March, Iceland will be the Guest of Honour at the Gdańskie Targi Książki literature festival in Gdansk, Poland. The…

Kristín Ómarsdóttir & Kristín Eiríksdóttir Nominated For 2019 Nordic Council Literature Prize

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Last week, the Nordic Council announced the nominations for the 2019 Nordic Council Literature Prize. Two Icelandic authors are nominated…

Best In Translation: Our Picks Of The 2018’s Best English-Translated Icelandic Literature

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2018 was a year of travel for Icelandic fiction, with the number of titles published in translation tripling from a…

The Mountains of Madness: Ófeigur Sigurðsson’s ‘Öræfi’ Published In English

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When Ófeigur Sigurðsson’s third novel ‘Öræfi’—an experimental novel set in Iceland’s desolate Öræfi region—first went off to the printers, the…

In The Belly Of The Whale: 
Sjón’s ‘CoDex 1962’ Published In English

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This autumn, Sjón’s anglophone readership will be glad to discover a new novel by the author in UK and US…

The Reykjavík Writer: Bragi Ólafsson’s ‘Narrator’ Published By Open Letter Books

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This August marks the publication of “Narrator,” Bragi Ólafsson’s third novel on the English language market. As with “The Pets”…

Language is a Weapon: Elías Knörr On Poetry & Prejudice

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If you have attended a Reykjavík poetry reading in recent years, chances are you have been lucky enough to catch…

Ten Years in Translation: US Publisher Of Icelandic Fiction Open Letter Books Fills A Decade

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Speak with any Anglophone translator of literature for longer than a few minutes and you’re likely to hear the number…

Trapped In A Narrative: New Book On The Guðmundur And Geirfinnur Case Released In The UK

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For most Icelanders, the names Guðmundur and Geirfinnur have immediate connotations. In January and November of 1974, these two seemingly…

Over and Over Again: 
Kristín Ómarsdóttir’s Poetry Published By Carcanet

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This summer, UK publisher Carcanet joins forces with Reykjavík/Manchester based publisher Partus to put out “Waitress in Fall”, a collection…

Last Words: Dear Future Employer

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The following is one of the many job applications the author has sent to advertising firms in his career as…

Tomorrow Will Be Worse: Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir’s ‘Stormwarning’ published in the US

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Although Icelandic literature is today widely available in other languages, translations of Icelandic poetry are a relative rarity—this despite the…

Alexander Dan On The Untapped Resource of Icelandic Fantasy

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In 2014, when Alexander Dan first started looking for a publisher for the sci-fi/fantasy novel that he’d worked on for…

An Elegy for a Murdered Woman: Gerður Kristný’s ‘Drápa’ Now In English

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This month, UK based Arc Publication will be publishing Drápa, Icelandic author and poet Gerður Kristný’s second book to appear…

Manipulating Time in Search of Meaning: ‘Hotel Silence’ Published In English

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This month, Pushkin Press and Grove Atlantic will be publishing ‘Hotel Silence’, Icelandic author and playwright Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir’s third…

The Fact of Fiction: 
“Woman at 1,000 Degrees” Published In English

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Though the Icelandic Christmas book season is over, the next few months mark the release of many Icelandic translations into…

Get Your Read On: Snare & Whiteout

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It’s winter. Don’t go out. It’s disgusting out there. Turn up the radiators and read one of these. Snare –…

The Eagle and the Falcon: Fantasy Of A Nazi-Occupied Iceland

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The tapestry of Icelandic writing in the 21st century is an ever expanding one. This is largely because although most…

The Book Flood Cometh: Iceland’s ‘Jólabókaflóð’ Arrives Once Again

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The Icelandic Yuletide is a time for two things: Reading and eating—and you can only do so much eating. Every…

The Benefits Of Being Lost: Rebekka Rafnsdóttir On Writing And Being

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Earlier this year, Rebekka Rafnsdóttir received the Bette Howland Prize for Non-Fiction for her essay ‘A Girl on the Hunt.’…

Lit News: TV Adaption Of ‘The Shroud’ In The Works

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Original TV dramas have always struggled in Iceland, largely due to the country’s small viewing market and the limited budget…