What role does the festival, which wrapped up late last month, play for the Icelandic literary community?
The biannual festival started as a Nordic poetry festival, but in 1987 it became more international, with authors from all over the world attending. We’ve had almost 200 authors from more than 60 countries visit the festival over the years. It’s like being in a big book club, and we love being in book clubs here. But the festival’s main role is to give Icelandic readers the opportunity to meet authors from abroad.
Which American author who joined you this year excited you most?
Hernan Diaz has a big readership in Iceland, although his book Trust has not yet been translated into Icelandic. He was born in Argentina and raised in Sweden, but has lived in the U.S. for the past 20 years or so. Another author who joined us with a wonderful reading, Anne Carson, is Canadian, but she happens to live in Iceland for half of the year. She holds an Icelandic citizenship too!
This year also marks the 70th anniversary of Halldor Laxness’s Nobel Prize in Literature. Why is that important for the Icelandic literary scene?
It’s important for a country with a language spoken by so few, and for our young authors, to have a Nobel Prize winner. It’s our responsibility to keep his name known in the world and not forgotten and have new translations of his works in as many languages as possible.
