Bragi Ólafsson

About the author

Bragi Ólafsson was born in Reykjavík on August 11, 1962. He studied Spanish at the University of Iceland for one year, and at the University of Granada in Spain 1985 – 1986. He has done a number of jobs in Reykjavík, at the post office, in a bank and a record store and was a member of different music bands for a number of years. One of them was the Sugarcubes, and Bragi toured with them in Europe and America.

Bragi's first published work, the poetry collection Dragsúgur (Draught), appeared in 1986. Since then, he has published other books of poetry, short story collections, plays and novels. His first novel, Hvíldardagar (Days of Repose) was nominated for the Icelandic Literature Prize in 1999 and the next one, Gæludýrin (The Pets) also in 2001. He received the DV Cultural Prize for the novel Samkvæmisleikir (Party Games) in 2004 and his novel Sendiherrann (The Ambassador) was nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 2008.

Bragi is one of the founders of the publishing company Smekkleysa (Bad Taste) which has mostly published music and arranged happenings of all kinds. He has translated poetry and the novel The Glass City (Glerborgin) by Paul Auster. His own poetry has been published in foreign translations in collections and magazines, and his novel Gæludýrin (The Pets) came out in Danish (2003), German (2005) and English (2008). Sendiherrann has also been translated to Danish (2008).

Publisher: Mál og menning.

Fiction

Novels:

Sendiherrann, 2006: Mál og menning

Denmark, Ambassadøren, 2008: Athene

Germany, Der Botschafter, 2009: S. Fischer

Gæludýrin, 2001: Bjartur

Denmark, Kæledyrene, 2003: Lindhardt og Ringhof

Germany, Die Haustiere, 2005: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag

USA, The Pets, 2008: Open Letter

Handritið að kvikmynd Arnar Featherby og Jóns Magnússonar um uppnámið á veitingahúsinu eftir Jenný Alexson, 2010: Mál og menning

Samkvæmisleikir, 2004: Bjartur

Hvíldardagar, 1999: Bjartur

Poetry:

Sweden, Vi kommer att svara i Eran telefon - Við munum svara í síma yðar, 1993: Björn Karlsson, Hugrún Gudmundsdóttir, Yrsa Roca Fannberg

Ansjósur, 1991: Forlagið

Dragsúgur, 1986: Smekkleysa

Fjórar línur og titill, 2006: Smekkleysa

Klink, 1995: Bjartur

Ljóðaúrval 1986-1996, 1999: Bjartur

Ytri höfnin, 1993: Bjartur

Poems in collections:

UK, poems in Brushstrokes of Blue: The Young Poets of Iceland, 1994: Greyhound

Short stories:

Iceland (bilingual publication - Icelandic, English), Innkaupalisti fyrir Kaupmannahöfn-A Shopping List for Copenhagen, 2004: Smekkleysa

Nöfnin á útidyrahurðinni, 1996: Bjartur

Short prose:

Mátunarklefinn og aðrar myndir (myndir eftir Einar Örn Benediktsson), 2007: Smekkleysa

Við hinir einkennisklæddu, 2003: Bjartur

Plays

Plays:

Hænuungarnir (Þjóðleikhúsið, 2010)

Belgíska Kongó (Borgarleikhúsið, 2004)