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About 83% Of Icelandic Books Are Printed Overseas
RÚV reports that, according to a new survey conducted by Bókasamband Íslands, some 83% of Icelandic titles are printed overseas. [su_pullquote]Need a Christmas present pronto? Get the Iceland lover in your life a Grapevine online shop gift voucher, or a High Five…
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The Bookish Tradition Of Christmas Eve
As yuletide approaches, the thoughts of Icelanders turn to books. And we’re talking real books here; the ones made from paper. The ones with actual pages that, when fresh and new, waft the promise of discovery as you turn them. Have you…
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Modern Stories From A City That Is Barely A City: Our Review of ‘ The Book Of Reykjavík’
How does one describe a city that is barely a city? Reykjavík was a town for most of the 20th century. Suddenly, the city moniker crept up on us. There was an announcement in the late 80s. A headline announcing there was…
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Record Number Of Icelandic Books Being Translated
This year has seen a record number of applications and grants towards translating Icelandic literature into other languages, RÚV reports. The Icelandic Literature Center has provided grants for 111 translations from Icelandic into 28 languages, from 147 applications. Most grants were for…
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Strong Icelandic Female Spirit In Three-And-A-Half Books
In the wake of two Icelandic women being slut-shamed over the idiocy of some poorly-quarantining English football halfwits, the Grapevine has put together this selection of recommended stories to help you better understand Icelandic women as a whole. Konan við þúsund gráður/Woman…
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The Effect Of COVID On Book Sales
The coronavirus epidemic has had a significant impact on Icelandic book publishing. The year started well, with sales in the first two months of 2020 about 20% higher than at the same time last year, but then they fell sharply in March…
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Wordflood: ‘Bókamessa’ Boasts A Record-Breaking Year For Fiction And Poetry Books
Bókamessa, Iceland’s annual book fair, is a déluge of books, publishers, readers, writers, and piparsmákökur—Icelandic pepper cookies. As the kick-off to the country’s infamous Jólabókaflóð, or Christmas Book Flood, the book fair, now in its ninth year, provides a safe harbour to…
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Nerd Alert: 2019 Was The Year For Icelandic Books
This year Icelanders saw a record number of books being published. From poetry to fiction to children’s books, it was an overall great year for the written word, RÚV reports. Be ready for this year’s Christmas book flood, because it’s bound to…
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Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir: There’s No Such Thing As An Innocent Text
“When I decided to become a writer,” says Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, “I started relatively late, like many women writers. I asked myself this very simple question: ‘Do I have something to say?’” Despite her early reservations, Auður did have something to say,…
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There Is No Brightness Without Darkness: Andri Snær’s New Children’s Book Now In English
Andri Snær Magnason is one of Iceland’s most famous writers on the international stage, and he always has a lot of irons in the fire. He has written novels, plays, children’s books, poems, a full-length documentary, and he has even dabbled a…
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Best In Translation: Our Picks Of The 2018’s Best English-Translated Icelandic Literature
2018 was a year of travel for Icelandic fiction, with the number of titles published in translation tripling from a mere decade ago. Here are some favourites that we have been passing around the Grapevine offices this year. Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir –…
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The Mountains of Madness: Ófeigur Sigurðsson’s ‘Öræfi’ Published In English
When Ófeigur Sigurðsson’s third novel ‘Öræfi’—an experimental novel set in Iceland’s desolate Öræfi region—first went off to the printers, the author himself didn’t spend much time pondering the book’s fate. “I really didn’t think anyone would ever publish it in the first…
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This is Ós: Ós Pressan Challenges What Counts As ‘Icelandic literature’
Since the days of sagas and skalds, the abundance and international distinction of Icelandic literature has always seemed an anomaly, deeply disproportionate to the nation’s tiny population and geographic isolation. Although the question of why Icelandic literature has achieved its iconicity has…
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Search For Life: Halldór Ragnarsson’s Accidental Art Project Finds Its Final Form
Halldór Ragnarsson’s book, “Search For Life,” is not, in fact, a book. It looks like one, with a cover and a spine and so forth; but it is in fact, says Halldór, something else entirely. “It was made the way I think…
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Last Words: Novels And TV Shows
It would be an understatement to say that I like novels more than I do TV series. I‘m making this slightly obnoxious declaration for a reason: increasingly, I‘ve been hearing people compare the two (very different) story-telling forms. “Watching [insert name of…
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Miss Vanjie Of The North: A Borgarnes Monument To An Insignificant Saga Character
You would be forgiven for assuming, upon visiting Borgarnes, that the elegant modern monument atop a hill in the town’s old centre commemorates some crucial figure or moment from local history. Carved in stone, the sculpture takes the shape of a ram’s…
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Ten Years in Translation: US Publisher Of Icelandic Fiction Open Letter Books Fills A Decade
Speak with any Anglophone translator of literature for longer than a few minutes and you’re likely to hear the number “three percent” being thrown around. It’s the percentage of books published in English each year that are literary translations. It has, therefore,…
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Trapped In A Narrative: New Book On The Guðmundur And Geirfinnur Case Released In The UK
For most Icelanders, the names Guðmundur and Geirfinnur have immediate connotations. In January and November of 1974, these two seemingly unconnected men vanished without a trace in and around Reykjavík, leading to speculation and paranoia in the community that eventually lead to…
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Over and Over Again: Kristín Ómarsdóttir’s Poetry Published By Carcanet
This summer, UK publisher Carcanet joins forces with Reykjavík/Manchester based publisher Partus to put out “Waitress in Fall”, a collection of poetry by Kristín Ómarsdóttir. The book presents a selection from Kristín’s career, including poems from her seven poetry books, published between…
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Tomorrow Will Be Worse: Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir’s ‘Stormwarning’ published in the US
Although Icelandic literature is today widely available in other languages, translations of Icelandic poetry are a relative rarity—this despite the vibrant Reykjavík poetry scene which has recently seen an influx of younger poets due to the efforts of grassroots publishers and festivals.…
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An Elegy for a Murdered Woman: Gerður Kristný’s ‘Drápa’ Now In English
This month, UK based Arc Publication will be publishing Drápa, Icelandic author and poet Gerður Kristný’s second book to appear in English. The book is a novel-in-verse that takes the form of a “drápa”—a verse form often found in Viking Age skaldic…
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The Fact of Fiction: “Woman at 1,000 Degrees” Published In English
Though the Icelandic Christmas book season is over, the next few months mark the release of many Icelandic translations into other languages by publishers across the world. One such is Hallgrímur Helgason’s 2011 novel ‘Woman at 1,000 Degrees,’ published by Algonquin Books…
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22% Of Icelandic Children Show Difficulties In Reading Their Own Language
The richness of Icelandic children’s lexicon, as well as their level of comprehension of their own language, has been dangerously decreasing during the past hundred years. In 2015, it was calculated through the so-called PISA test (Programme for International Student Assessment) that Iceland…