News
Jón Kalman Stefánsson on a Reading Tour in Germany
On Monday, May the 4th, Jón Kalman Stefánsson will give his first of five readings in Germany and Austria. The author will be reading from his book Himnaríki og helvíti/Heaven and hell, wich was published in German last February. He is accompanied by his German translator, Karl Ludwig Wetzig. The readings will take place in the following cities:
Monday, 4 May 20:00
The Embassy of Iceland - Berlin, Rauchstr. 1, 10787 Berlin (http://www.botschaft-island.de/). Registration by phone: + 49 (0)30 50504180 or bb@mfa.is.
Tuesday, 5 May 20:00
Stadtbibliothek Bremerhaven, Bürgermeister-Smidt-Str. 10, 27568 Bremerhaven (http://www.stadtbibliothek-bremerhaven.de/). Preface from Johann P. Tammen.
Wednesday, 6. May
Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Institut für Nordische Philologie, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 München (http://www.nordistik.uni-muenchen.de/).
Thursday, 7 May
The Roemke bookstore, Apostelnstr. 7, 50667 Köln (http://www.roemke-buecher.de/).
Friday, 8 May
Literaturhaus Klagenfurt, Austurríki.
Jón Kalman Stefánsson was born in Reykjavík on December 17th 1963. He lived there for the first 12 years of his life, then moved to Keflavík and returned to Reykjavík in 1986 with his highschool diploma. From 1975 – 1982 he spent a good deal of his time in West Iceland, where he did various jobs, worked in a slaughterhouse, in the fishing industry, doing masonry and for one summer he worked as a police officer at Keflavík International Airport. Jón Kalman studied literature at the University of Iceland from 1986 until 1991 but did not finish his degree. He taught literature at two highschools for a period of time and wrote articles and critique for Morgunblaðið newspaper for a number of years. Jón lived in Copenhagen from 1992 – 1995, reading, washing floors and counting buses. He worked as a librarian at the Mosfellsbær Library near Reykjavík until the year 2000. Since then he has been a full time writer.
His first published work, the poetry collection, Með byssuleyfi á eilífðina, came out in 1988. He has published two other collections of poetry and a number of novels. His novel Sumarljós, og Svo kom nóttin/ Summer Light, and Then Came the Night won The Icelandic Literature Prize in 2005. Three of his books have also been nominated for The Nordic Council's Literature Prize.
Himnaríki og helvíti/ Heaven and hell was published by Reclam in february 2009, translated by Karl-Ludwig Wetzig.