Articles by: Valur Gunnarsson
The Pleasures of Lingua Franca
We don’t get a lot of French up here. We learn English and Danish in primary school, and in secondary…
IF TRUTH BE TOLD…
This publishing date marks the 20th and last Grapevine I’m editing, at least for the time being. It also marks…
Can Bobby Fisher be helped?
How Fischer Played his Part in Political Disputes But not between the countries you think Getting Bobby Fischer to Iceland…
The Tragedy of Bobby Fischer
“Nobody has single-handedly done more for the US than me. When I won the world championship, in 1972, the United…
Stockholm’s Great Highway to Hope
Man Bites Dog “Society is madhouse whose wardens are the officials and the police,” it said. I stopped, surprised, excited…
STOCKHOLM Picks
The Blue Tower, The Strindberg Museum, Dronninggatan 85 Strindberg’s last home, and where he died in 1912. Apart from his…
BOMBING-STARVATION-BOMBING:
When I first went to Saudi-Arabia in the summer of 1991, they hailed me as liberator. Granted, they mistook me…
AMERICAN DIPLOMACY AND THE DECLINE OF DEMOCRACY
A nightmare scenario? Well, yes, and also the subject of a new play, American Diplomacy, written and directed by aspiring…
More Money than You’ll Ever See Again
The reason for the curator being stripped of her powers to open museum doors is not due to a demotion…
Where do they go from here?
Davíð Oddsson Having spent almost a decade as top dog in the city, and then another decade as top dog…
THE FACE OF ICELANDIC FOOD:
by Valur Gunnarsson, Angela Stokes and Padraig Mara
By Valur Gunnarsson An American book from 1965 called The Art of Scandinavian Cooking (a contradiction in terms, you may be…
Iceland, Scandinavia, rest of world
It was a good year for Grapevine. We came back last June all guns blazing, and suddenly found ourselves in…
WHY EDUCATION IS IMPORTANT:
The road to hell The Great Depression wiped out the demand for coffee, Brazil’s major export. In 1930, Getulio Vargas…
I AM NOT GAY
So you’re not gay, then? No, I am not. It’s pretty funny – people have gotten upset with me, saying…
PÓSTBARINN and the great post office rush
The bars’ name is actually derived from the street it stands on, Pósthússtræti (Post Office Street). The first post office…
If Christians read the Bible…
I was lucky enough to not to be baptised in infancy. My parents felt that this was a decision I…
Anti-War Protestors Buy New York Times Ad
They were joining writers Andri Snær Magnason and Hallgrímur Helgason, singer Bubbi Morthens who sang his anti-war song “Fastur liður”…
A beginner´s guide to Estonian culture
DARKNESS IN TALLINN by Ilkka Jarvi-Laturi “What do we do now that we’re free?” ”I don’t know, go to work…
GUNNAR GUNNARSSONThe Forgotten Star of Icelandic Literature
Born in 1889 in Fljótsdalur as the son of a farmer and growing up in Vopnafjörður in the East, Gunnar…
can jesus, allah and science coexist?
by Valur Gunnarsson TAKE 1: The Vikings “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” Easily the best…
The Struggle for New Iceland
by Sigtryggur Baldursson, Padraig Mara and Valur Gunnarsson
by Valur Gunnarsson TAKE 1: The Vikings Relations between North Americans and Icelanders did not get off to an auspicious…
Editorial: WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG?
Where did it all go wrong? How did it come to this? The United States seemed like such a good…
BLACK MILK: A Revelation on the Reykjavík Stage
There´s nothing quite as sad as seeing an elderly Russian woman standing on a corner, peddling the medals the party…
Attacking the Very Thing You´re Defending:An examination of the latter day lyrics of NICK CAVE
On the masterful Let Love In, he concentrates on the conflict and heartbreak that so often comes with love, particularly…
WHO CARES ABOUT THE KIDS?
It used to be the case that seeing somebody famous, and I mean somebody really famous, somebody foreign and famous,…