{"id":287496,"date":"2011-10-11T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2011\/10\/11\/gerdur-kristny-fabulous-iceland\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T16:16:55","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T16:16:55","slug":"gerdur-kristny-fabulous-iceland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2011\/10\/11\/gerdur-kristny-fabulous-iceland\/","title":{"rendered":"Ger\u00f0ur Kristn\u00fd [Fabulous Iceland]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another thing I want to do this week (in addition to a special post about Icelandic cuisine) is highlight some of the as-yet-untranslated authors featured on the wonderful Fabulous Iceland<\/a> site.<\/p>\n

First up is Ger\u00f0ur Kristn\u00fd,<\/a> who I had the honor of meeting last time I was in Iceland. (Facebook friends go first! Besides, Ger\u00f0ur and her husband, Kristj\u00e1n J\u00f3nasson, are two of the nicest people ever.) She’s the author of 18 books, mostly poetry, but also novels, short story collections, and children’s books. <\/p>\n

As mentioned on the Fabulous Iceland site, 2010 was a kick-ass year for Ger\u00f0ur. Over the course of 2010 she won three prizes: the J\u00f3n \u00far V\u00f6r Poetry Prize, the Gu\u00f0mundur B\u00f6\u00f0varsson Poetry Prize, and West Nordic Children’s Literature Prize. She has a new book of poetry out—Bl\u00f3\u00f0h\u00f3fnir<\/i> (Bloodhoof)—which is based on an ancient Eddic poem and has been receiving a lot of praise. And that comment about being one of the nicest people ever? She also spent some time in Uganda recently working with the Icelandic branch of Save the Children. <\/p>\n

Fabulous Iceland has a very nice interview<\/a> with Ger\u00f0ur, which is where the following is pulled from:<\/p>\n

\n

Your newest book draws on ancient Nordic literature: The Lay of Sk\u00edrnir<\/em> in the Poetic Edda. Sixteen years before that, you dealt with the exact same work in the poem \u201cTil Sk\u00edrnis\u201d (\u201cTo Sk\u00edrnir\u201d), which appeared in your debut. Did the material for Bloodhoof<\/em> stay with you for all those years?<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

As a child, I fell in love with Norse mythology. I thought the stories were terrific. The tale of my namesake, Ger\u00f0ur, the daughter of Gymir, was an early favorite, so I lent her a voice in my first work, the poetry book \u00cdsfr\u00e9tt<\/em> (Ice Report, 1994). Later, after turning in the manuscript of my first novel, Regnbogi \u00ed p\u00f3stinum<\/em> (A Rainbow in the Mail, 1996), I decided to celebrate by getting a tattoo. I had an old friend, the late tattoo-artist Helgi, tattoo Freyr’s sword on me. I’ve gone around armed ever since. I would later write a poem about Helgi, which appeared in H\u00f6ggsta\u00f0ur<\/em> (Weak Point, 2007).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

The new book undermines the traditional reading of The Lay of Sk\u00edrnir<\/em> as a love poem. Instead, it highlights the coercion brought to bear on the giantess Ger\u00f0ur. Tellingly, equal rights have been a persistent theme in your work. There is a special kind of impact in subverting old traditions like this, isn’t there?<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Equal rights are often mentioned in the pieces I’ve written for the newspaper Fr\u00e9ttabla\u00f0i\u00f0<\/em> during the past five years, but not in the poetry you are referring to. Scholars have covered The Lay of Sk\u00edrni_r very well in the past few years, and no wonder \u2013 it’s a captivating poem that lends itself readily to interpretation. I find the coercion in _The Lay of Sk\u00edrnir<\/em> to be plain as day. Ger\u00f0ur Gymisd\u00f3ttir has no more choice than the young girls I recently met in Uganda. Just like her, they were snatched from their homes and forced into the service of men. Sk\u00edrnir bullied Ger\u00f0ur with threats, the worst of which was the threat of eternal loneliness, that she will only have death to look forward to. It’s understandable that this threat sways her. When I was little, I read that Ger\u00f0ur was counted among the \u00c6sir \u2013 the Norse Gods \u2013 after arriving in their midst. At the time I thought that this must have been a great honor to her. However, if you read the poem you’ll see that she doesn’t want to leave her home and only gives in under extreme duress. The lay comes to a close when Sk\u00edrnir informs the god Freyr that Ger\u00f0ur is on her way. I wanted to continue the story and relate what happened when Freyr and Ger\u00f0ur meet. And that’s what I did in Bloodhoof.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

There is a strong element of horror in your poetry. Does fear fascinate you?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

My world of poetry has always had very strict border patrols. However, fear was an early settler, settling into its deepest crevices. It’s stayed there ever since; I don’t think I’ll be evicting it by now. In any case, there has to be room for the whole spectrum of emotions. [. . .]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

18 works in 16 years. Is more on the way?<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

There sure is! In late January, my musical Balli\u00f0 \u00e1 Bessast\u00f6\u00f0um<\/em> (The Bessasta\u00f0ir Ball) will premier on the main stage of the National Theater. It’s adapted from two of my books: The Bessasta\u00f0ir Ball<\/em> (2007) and Prinsessan \u00e1 Bessast\u00f6\u00f0um<\/em> (The Bessasta\u00f0ir Princess, 2009). After that, there are at least two novels waiting to be finished, and I have quite a bit of unpublished poetry. In December, I’ll be heading off to a poetry festival in Bangladesh, and no doubt some of the things I’ll see there will find their way into poetry. I’ll bring a notepad along, sketch down ideas, and when I get home I’ll see if they’re worth anything.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another thing I want to do this week (in addition to a special post about Icelandic cuisine) is highlight some of the as-yet-untranslated authors featured on the wonderful Fabulous Iceland site. First up is Ger\u00f0ur Kristn\u00fd, who I had the honor of meeting last time I was in Iceland. (Facebook friends go first! Besides, Ger\u00f0ur […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[27426,43236,43246,6046,1646],"class_list":["post-287496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-fabulous-iceland","tag-gerdur-kristny","tag-iceland-week","tag-icelandic-literature","tag-review"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320056,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287496\/revisions\/320056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}