The Book of Reykjavík, a collection of Icelandic short fiction published by UK publisher Comma Press, is being featured at the Manchester Literature Festival. Please check out this series of interviews about writing and Icelandic fiction with author’s Audur Jonsdottir, Fríða Ísberg and myself as well as the collection’s editor, Vera Júlíusdóttir. The video was recorded by translator Meg Matich and is free to stream until the 30th of November.
The Book of Reykjavík, a short story collection of Icelandic fiction published by Comma Press in the UK, will be featured this year at the Manchester Literature Festival. Meg Matich, who translated many of the stories in the collection, along with Larissa Kyzer and more, interviewed Fríða Ísberg, Audur Jonsdottir and myself about our stories in the collection and about the state of Icelandic fiction and more.
The interviews will be streamed online during the festival on the 1-14th of November.
Recently, Fríða Ísberg and I spoke with West Camel from Orenda Books for the Stanfords Travel Podcast about Comma Press‘s Book of Reykjavík, a new English language collection of Icelandic short fiction. Fríða and I read from our stories in the collection and chatted about various literary traditions and clichés in Iceland in general and about the literary landscapes of Reykjavík.
It was a fun talk, thank you to everyone who attended and especially everyone who submitted questions. You can listen to our chat here.
I directed a panel at the Reykjavík International Literary Feastival for the third time this year. I spoke with Patrik Svensson, author of the surprise international bestseller The Gospel of Eels, and poet and playwright Halla Þórlaug Óskarsdóttir, author of Þagnarbindindi (The Quiet Game), which won the Icelandic poetry prize Maístjarnan for 2021. The panel was on the subject of writing through grief and loss, something that the three of us are all too familiar with, as can be seen in our recent works.
My story Two Foxes is being published in Comma Press‘s forthcoming collection of Icelandic short fictions. It is the third story from my 2017 collection Smáglæpir (Misdemeanours) to be published in English, all translated by Larissa Kyzer.
The introduction to The Book of Reykjavík is written by Sjón and the collection includes fiction from Fríða Ísberg, Kristína Eiríksdóttir, Auður Jóns, Friðgeir Einarsson, Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir, Andri Snær and more. I feel humbled to be in such fine company.
So, for the past year or so I have been working on a web forum dedicated to reviews of books by Icelandic authors that are available in English. The project is called The Bridge Reviews and is meant to increase the visibility of contemporary Icelandic literature and create a place where readers and industry people can find information about Icelandic books, authors, publishers and translators all in one place. The forum is hosted by the Literature Web in partnership with the Reykjavík City Library (Borgarbókasafnið) and Reykjavík City of Literature (Reykjavík Bókmenntaborg UNESCO). The project is funded by the Icelandic Literature Center.
Currently, the forum is home to 70 reviews of Icelandic books in English translation, but the goal is to cover all Icelandic books available in English – funding willing.
I love how WWB have presented the work in such a way that by clicking around you can read the Icelandic and the English texts side by side and even listen to a recording of myself and the other authors reading an extract from their original texts.
“The Husband and his Brother” first appeared in my 2017 short story collection “Smáglæpir” (Misdemeanours), and I guess you might say that it is a fairly grim tale of family/nationality and how inaction leads to complicity.
The latest issue of Iceland Review (Issue 4:2019 – Aug/Sep) includes my short story “If only you’d called”, which was originally published in Icelandic in my 2017 short story collection Smáglæpir (Misdemeanours). The English translation is by Larissa Kyzer, whose translation of Kristín Eiríksdóttir’s award winning novel A Fist or a Heart was recently published by Amazon Crossing.
Larissa and I are good friends and also worked together earlier this year at the PEN World Voices Festival in New York. It was a joy to witness how she approached my story. I was particularly impressed with how she solved certain technical challenges, as “If only you’d called” is one of the more complex stories in the collection in terms of plot and narration. Along with the stories “The husband and his brother” and “Flotsam”, it relies on a structure that is aching to what might be found in a thriller or murder mystery, and Larissa handled the gradual reveal of the story’s ending perfectly.
I’m also excited to see that Iceland Review has begun to publish fiction, as there is a great lack of such publishing outlets for Icelandic writers. Currently, there are only two or three magazines out there that regularly publish works by Icelandic writers and poets. Authors must, therefore, rely solely on the book publishing industry in order to get their work out there or take on the arduous task of self-publishing.
Along with recruiting a translator, Iceland Review also got artist Helga Páley Friðþjófsdóttir to do an illustration for the story—a rare treat for most authors. She did an amazing job and managed to capture the atmosphere of the story just as well as Larissa did in her translation. Getting to observe how other writers and artist tackle your work and interact with it is an absolute privilege. I can only hope that there will be more such chances in my future.
Larissa Kyzer is the translator of “Birds” by Rán Flygenring and Hjörleifur Hjartarson and the forthcoming translation of Kristín Eiríksdóttir‘s novel A Fist or a Heart (“Elín, ýmislegt”), which won the 2017 Icelandic Literary Prize and is nominated for this year’s Nordic Council Literature Prize.
This Friday, February 15th, I will be doing a reading in the Community Bookstore on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. The reading is a part of the Brooklyn Writers Space Reading Series, and two other BWS authors, Stephen Aubrey and Lena Valencia, will also be reading that night.
Brooklyn Writers Space is a quiet communal space for writers to work their craft. I’ve been a member of BWS for the past 6 months and having a space where I can work in peace and quiet for a few hours each day has massively improved my productivity and focus. It doesn’t hurt that there is also a bottomless jar of french roast in the lounge.
Hope to see you at the Community Bookstore this Friday.
