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The Story-Shaped Island: The Remarkable History of Icelandic Literature
For more than eight centuries, Icelanders have used literature to find their place in the world. This book tells the extraordinary story of how a remote, sparsely populated island became home to one of the world’s most enduring literary cultures. In the late Middle Ages, Icelanders committed to parchment an astonishing body of world literature: prose narratives of conflict, love, honour and revenge among farmers on an island whose population did not reach one hundred thousand.
This is a panoramic and accessible account: from the Eddic poems and sagas, through the Reformation, hardship and nation-building, to the international success of contemporary Icelandic fiction. The book places literature within Iceland’s social and political history and reveals how storytelling became a form of cultural memory, survival and self-creation. Major works are presented through vivid human stories, allowing general readers to enter a tradition that can otherwise seem remote or specialised.
Icelandic edition Líf í bókum, 563 pp., publication date October 2026
Publisher: Mál og menning / Forlagið.
Foreign rights: Reykjavík Literary Agency
Poets and Savages
A 10-part series for Icelandic Radio (RÚV), written and produced by Þorgerður E. Sigurðardóttir and Halldór Guðmundsson.
Iceland and Copenhagen through the lens of literature:
This series explores the centuries-old connection between the two through multiple perspectives. For nearly 500 years, Copenhagen functioned as a kind of capital for Iceland – home to its administration, highest court, and its king. Some Icelanders were forced to flee there or were taken against their will, while others sought freedom and rights in the city that they didn’t have at home.
How did the city appear to them? How did it change their perspectives – or even alter the course of their lives? Few places reveal this better than the writings of the Icelanders themselves, which are explored in the series alongside interviews with authors and various experts. Listeners will also hear fascinating clips from the RÚV archives, mixed with various kinds of music.
The result is a portrait that is at times beautiful, at times disturbing – but always intriguing.
Salman Rushdie in Iceland
On September 13, Reykjavík hosted a memorable ceremony for the prestigious Halldór Laxness International Literary Prize 2024, celebrating the remarkable contributions of Salman Rushdie to world literature. The event marked the fourth edition of this award, which honours writers who, like Laxness, have transformed the narrative art. After receiving the award, Salman Rushdie took part in a discussion about his life and works, moderated by Halla Oddný Magnúsdóttir and Halldór Guðmundsson, which can be seen here.
A new book on the History of Icelandic Literature
In March 2024, a new book by Halldór Guðmundsson, on the history of Iceland and Icelandic literature, written in German, will be published by btb Verlag / Random House in Germany. It is called “Im Schatten des Vulkans – eine literarische Reise ins Herz Islands” and, as it says in the presentation of the publisher, “takes the reader on a fascinating journey of discovery through this world of literature, which has always reflected the living conditions on that distant, myth-enshrouded island. Starting with the ancient Edda poems and sagas that form the foundation of national identity, the book stretches all the way to the vibrant present.”
The presentation by btb Verlag in German.
A presentation of the book on German television, ZDF heute journal
The Islander republished
The Islander, the English edition of Halldór Guðmundsson’s biography of Halldór Laxness, translated by Philip Roughton, is being republished as a paperback in September 2023. From the presentation by MacLehose Press:
“An enthralling, heartening study of a man of unflagging interest in life” Independent
A strong and memorable portrayal of a man who fought heroically to write for the world, but in one of its rarest languages. Halldór Laxness won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955. During his life, which spanned nearly the entire century, he not only wrote sixty books, but also became an active participant in Europe’s idealistic debates and struggles.
The presentation by MacLehose Press
Here is a review of this republication by Michael Hofmann in the London Review of Books
A new translation of Laxness’s Salka Valka pubished in the US
The first of the great social novels by Halldór Laxness, Salka Valka, originally published in Iceland in the early thirties, was republished in the US , in a new translation by Philip Roughton, by Archipelago books in 2022. It has had wonderful reviews and many of them refer to the English edition of Guðmundsson’s Laxness biography,The Islander. See e.g.
The New Yorker by Salvatore Scibona about the rediscovery of Laxness
ITB Award for Land of Stories
With its annual ITB Book Awards, ITB Berlin recognizes publications from Germany and abroad, written mainly in German, but also in German translation. In 2022 ITB Berlin is again honoring outstanding literary and journalistic achievements with the aim of drawing international attention to a wide range of important travel and tourism publications. In 2022 the World’s Leading Travel Trade Show is again collaborating with Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels.
The winners were announced on January 26th, 2022. Halldór Guðmundsson receives the award in the category literary travel books for his work Island: Insel aus Geschichten with photographs by Dagur Gunnarsson, translated by Kristof Magnusson, published by Corso / Verlagshaus Römerweg.
The Laboratory of Literature
A new radio series on Icelandic literature and the book market in the last two decades of the 20th century from Gudmundsson’s point of view as a publisher at that time, in collaboration with Þröstur Helgason and Þorgerður E. Sigurðardóttir. In ten parts, broadcast weekly from January 9th, 2022, until March 12th. Produced by The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, RUV, Radio 1, and available here.
