Ófeigur Sigurðsson, author of Öræfi: The Wasteland, will be at SUNY-Geneseo on October 10, in conversation with Lytton Smith!
Sponsored by the Icelandic Literature Center and with support from Iceland Naturally
Ófeigur Sigurðsson was born in Reykjavík in 1975. He is a graduate of the University of Iceland with a degree in philosophy. He made his poetry debut in 2001 with Skál fyrir skammdeginu (Cheers to the Winter Darkness), and published his first novel, Áferð (Texture), in 2005. Since then, he has published six books of poetry and three novels, in addition to his work as an accomplished translator. Sigurðsson was awarded the European Union Prize for Literature in 2011 for his novel, Jon, making him the first Icelander to receive the prize. His novel Öræfi: The Wasteland was published in Iceland in 2014 to great critical and commercial acclaim, and received the Book Merchant’s Prize in 2014 and the Icelandic Literature Prize in 2015. He currently resides in Antwerp, Belgium.
About the Translator
Lytton Smith is the award-winning author of four books of poetry and several translations from the Icelandic, including Jón Gnarr’s childhood memoir trilogy, The Indian, The Pirate, and The Outlaw (Deep Vellum); The Ambassador by Bragi Ólafsson (Open Letter); and Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristín Ómarsdóttir (Open Letter). His translation of Guðbergur Bergsson’s Tómas Jónsson—Bestseller (Tómas Jónsson, metsölubók) was published by Open Letter Books in 2017. He is an Assistant Professor of English at SUNY Geneseo in upstate New York.
ABOUT THE BOOK
After a grueling solo expedition on the Vatnajökull Glacier, Austrian toponymist Bernhardt Fingerberg returns to civilization, barely alive, and into the care of Dr. Lassi. The doctor, suspicious of his story, attempts to discover his real motives for venturing into the treacherous wastelands of Iceland — but the secrets she unravels may be more dangerous than they’re worth.