Gyrðir Elíasson

Brynjarr Þór Mendoza (University of Turku)

Ed. by Ármann Jakobsson, University of Iceland
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.3.4: Icelandic Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Ármann Jakobsson (University of Iceland), Kjerstin Moody (Gustavus Adolphus College), Sven Hakon Rossel (Universitat Wien), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London)

Dates

Born 4 Apr 1961

Places

Active in Iceland

Activities

Primary

Translator
Writer / Author

Resources

Elíasson's Works

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Gyrðir Elíasson is an Icelandic novelist, poet, translator, and painter, born in 1961. He has won several literary prizes, including the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2011. The broad scope of Gyrðir’s oeuvre reflects the variety of his capacities as an overall artist and his dexterity and versatility as a storyteller. With great finesse, he frequently interweaves quotations, references, and narratives from other writers with his local Icelandic wellspring. As with many of his peers, Gyrðir makes good use of Icelandic folktales in his narratives, with the “afturgöngur” or the “undead” appearing, for example, in works such as

Bréfbátaringingin

[Rain for paper boats] and

Svefnhjólið

[The sleep wheel]. He works across various genres – novels, poetry, short stories,…

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1987 words

Citation: Mendoza, Brynjarr Þór. "Gyrðir Elíasson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 March 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14984, accessed 04 May 2024.]

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