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Fresh Perspective Of Immigrant Writers
Tired of the same old established writer telling you the same story in different words again and again? Well, we have something new for you—you ungrateful and ever-demanding bastards. Iceland is chock full of brilliant immigrant writers sharing their fresh perspective of…
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Visual Arts Are Booming And Christmas Is Coming!
“This will be the creme de la creme,” says Árni Már Erlingsson, visual artist and one of the owners of Gallery Port, when asked whose work will be featured in this year’s Christmas market. The gallery has gained a lot of attention…
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Editorial: A Thank You Letter
This is perhaps an odd editorial. Writers like to write about themselves, but journalists hate it. I’ll admit, I’m a fusion of both. I’m leaving as the editor-in-chief of the Reykjavík Grapevine, as is news editor Andie Sophia Fontaine. Don’t worry, you’re…
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The Writer, The Prophet: Sigríður Hagalín Has Gone From News To Nightmarish Dystopias
If you live in Iceland, the odds are that you know exactly who Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir is. As a well-known news reporter at RÚV, our national broadcaster, she often sits down with politicians or prominent figures in society as part of the…
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The Icelandic Roundup: Difficult For Extreme Politics To Thrive In Iceland
Extreme nationalism has a hard time thriving in Iceland because Icelanders have embraced romantic nationalism since their independence in 1944, according to Dr. Eiríkur Bergman, a political scientist and a writer. Eiríkur was our guest on the Icelandic Roundup podcast where we…
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Inside Reykjavík’s Best Libraries
It’s not news that Icelanders like to read. It’s also not news that books in Iceland are damn expensive. Both locals and expats use a variety of public and university libraries around the country on a daily basis, and some even for…
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Well, You Asked: King Ugly-Face!
Is there any wildlife in Iceland? Yes; birds, mice, rats, arctic foxes and a whole lot of birds. That’s kind of it. If you go to the east, you will perhaps find some reindeer in the highland. But the most interesting creatures…
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Navigating Life Through Meaning: Auður Jónsdóttir Writes Her Own Self
Auður Jónsdóttir established herself as one of Iceland’s best writers of a new generation when her novel, ‘The people in the basement’ (‘Fólkið í kjallaranum’) was published in 2004. Auður uses the idea of family often in her novels and she is…
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A Memorial: The Prins That Understood Us
When we at The Reykjavík Grapevine heard the news that Svavar Pétur Eysteinsson, best known as Prins Póló, had died, we didn’t really know what to say. As always when a loved one dies, it felt unreal—a harsh reminder of how fragile…
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The Almost Fishmonger Who Launched a Restaurant
There is no simple way to explain Jón Mýrdal, one of Reykjavík’s most prolific restaurant moguls. His varied CV includes experienced hunter, stand-up comedian, TV star, musician, journalist (we used to work together in the mid-2000 in that environment) and finally a…
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Icelandic Love Stories: There Is Nothing Simple About The Icelandic Love Story
Icelanders are perhaps not the most romantic people in the world, but underneath our cold exterior, our amorous hearts still beat loudly to the rhythm of our Viking ancestors… or something like that. Icelandic authors have written excellent love stories over the…
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Booming Interest In Icelandic Books
“The summer has been very good in general when it comes to selling books, but we haven’t sold this many translated Icelandic books over the same period since 2019,” says Egill Örn Jóhannsson, Executive Director of Forlagið, the biggest book publisher in…
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Track By Track: Green Beans And Catfish Sprinkled With Ambient
The visionary tech-nerd and electro musical genius Futuregrapher has released not one, but two world class ambient and electronic albums. “Geirþjófsfjörður” (Fjord of Geirþjófur) and “Grænar Baunir” (green beans) may not seem the obvious choice of names for cutting-edge experimental electronic albums,…
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The Human State Is Epic: “Reply To A Letter From Helga,” is now a feature film
“Reply To A Letter From Helga” (Svar við bréfi Helgu) has a special spot in the hearts of Icelanders. Published in 2010, the novel is just 106 pages long, but it seems to capture the entire human experience of love and regret…
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Oscar Buzz Around Hildur Guðnadóttir’s New Movie
The American film magazines, Hollywood Reporter and Variety are convinced that Cate Blanchett’s new film, Tár, will receive a few nominations for the Oscars after it premiered at the Venice film festival last Thursday. This is quite the news for Icelanders, for…
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Great Moments In Icelandic History: The Bónus Flag at The Parliament
This moment has a pretty unique stand in this writer’s mind, as I witnessed it take place. I was a young journalist when it happened in 2008 and I remember the tension it presented, which I tried to explain in an article…
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Food Review: The Greenhouse
Hveragerði is an odd town, occupying a strange space in the hearts of elder millennials and Gen Xers. The town, which is only 40 minutes away from Reykjavík, used to have the only theme park in Iceland. It wasn’t much. There were…
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Get Your Summer Read On
The books to read while travelling around Iceland Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was Author: SJÓN Sjón is hands down the king of Scandinavian magic realism. He has also written scripts for films like the Northman directed by Robert Eggers, and the…
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Track By Track: Lemon Street With Pale Moon
Pale Moon is an intriguing psychedelic rock band comprised of husband-wife duo Árni Guðjónsson and Natalia Sushchenko and signed to Spanish label AU! Records. The handful of singles they’ve released to date have piqued our interest, so we at the Reykjavík Grapevine…
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Great Moments In Icelandic History: The Smurf Porn Incident
It was on a cold day in January 1992 when an unsuspecting mother rented the newest Smurf Movie for her darling children. The mother found the movie in the rack, somewhere between Disney’s ‘Aladdin’ and Whoopi Goldbergs’ ‘Sister Act’. The Smurf movie…
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Artic Creatures In Trashed Beaches
“We are old friends, me, Óskar Jónsson and Hrafnkell Sigurðsson. We came out of the Icelandic punk scene,” says Stefán Jónsson, one of Iceland’s notable theatre directors. These old friends have now published an interesting book, an extension of an ongoing art…
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Track By Track: Melodramatic With Heidrunna
Heiðrún Anna Björnsdóttir became quite famous with the Icelandic band Cigarette in the mid-90s, which took the music scene by storm. Their one-hit wonder, I Don’t Believe You, became the biggest hit that year in the Icelandic music scene and they were…
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Burgers Part 2: Hip Hop Legends And Dirty Politicians
That Reykjavík loves its burgers in all forms—from vegan, vegetarian, lamb, and standard beef, to exotic flights of fancy—is well established. So much so that even restaurants that aren’t burger joints almost always have a burger or two on their menus. With…
