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EINAR ÖRN GUNNARSSON
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Born in 1962 in Reykjavik, Iceland, Einar Örn Gunnarsson has become one of the most interesting writers in Iceland. While studying in The University Of Iceland Law School, he became aware that his greatest passion was writing. He started working as a journalist and has written a great number of articles for Reykjavik newspapers. He also has conducted extensive interviews on various well known artists throughout Europe, USA and within Iceland. He soon turned his focus on his real work, eventually publishing his novels. He puts out new work with certain regularity. Einar Orn Gunnarsson has several novels and many short stories under his belt. Gunnarsson has received various grants, including writer's salaries from the Icelandic ministry of Education. He was also selected for residency by the city of Schoppingen, Germany where he lived in 1998. Most recently, his "Krákuhöllin" play for Nemendaleikhúsiđ (a Reykjavik theater) received a number of rave reviews and is considered a breakthrough among Icelandic playwrights. Collaborating with director Hilmir Snćr Guđnason, the play was very successful. Gunnarsson is presently working on more plays. Below are samples of some of the major works by Gunnarsson, published in Iceland.
Mr Gunnarsson was recently selected to represent Icelandic writers on the Literature Express Train from Lissabon Thru to Moscow in the Summer of 2000. See http://www.literaturexpress.org/
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Krákuhöllin, play, 1999
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This work,
being strangely detached from time and environment and possibly a remarkable paradox, is
such that I assert that it be among the better Icelandic plays written during recent
years... |
Tár Paradísarfuglsins, novel, 104 pages, hardcover, published by Ormstunga in 1998.
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Tár Paradísarfuglsins is a perplexing, scary, intense read. The letters reveal Gunnarsson´s doomed, sick to death - and beyond - protagonist to be a man at odds with the world around him and with the world he remembers, creates, and imagines in dreams, more often in nightmares. His only solution in death and reunification, strange, often frighteningly painful life in letters to somehow fitting yet very distressing end. Lanae Hjortsvant Isaacson, for WORLD LITERATURE REVIEW, San Jose, Ca. Full review Excerpts: English / Spanish / (more coming)
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Draugasinfonían, novel, 240 pages, hardcover, published by Ormstunga in 1996.
Benjamín, novel, 155 pages, hardcover, published by Almenna bókafélagiđ in 1992.
Nćđingur, novel, 128 pages, paperback, published by Grágás in 1990.