International Authors' Stage: Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (IS)

The individual's story in the shared grand narrative

“Ólafsdóttir's specialty is the small journeys we make to save ourselves and those we care about. She is the noblest cartographer of the heart.” - Sjón

In a world full of crises, where every day overflows with depressing news about weather records, what can the individual do with their worries and their hopes? The award-winning Icelandic author Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir addresses this in her current novel Eden, which was published in Danish in 2023.

Ólafsdóttir is one of Iceland's leading writers. Since her debut in 1998, Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir's books have been enthusiastically received by reviewers and readers. The highlights of the authorship include - in addition to Eden - i.a. Scar, about a man who, after a traumatic divorce, wants to commit suicide, but who finds his way back to life through a hotel stay in a country ravaged by civil war. Ólafsdóttir received the Nordic Council's Literature Prize for Scar in 2018.

Endangered nature and endangered languages

"Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir has written a laconic, irresistible and masterfully condensed narrative about what we stand for in the midst of doom ... Eden is one of the most poignant things I have read in a long time about the climate crisis." – Weekendavisen

Climate crisis may sound heavy, but in Ólafsdóttir's writing, the serious goes hand in hand with the light and the humorous. In Eden, the climate crisis is a common human condition and an everyday experience. And it is not only nature that is threatened with extinction, but also the strange ancient language, Icelandic. Through the novel's playful and imaginative handling of both language and plot, we follow the linguist Alba, who begins to plant a forest on an otherwise barren plot of land - perhaps to offset the CO2 of her many flights to conferences on dying languages.

In September, you can meet Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir in the Queen's Hall for a conversation about her writing, climate crisis, hope and the power of language.

“Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir is simply a virtuoso when she makes the serious subject area float lightly and gracefully on a keynote of defiant hope. (-) Eden is an unparalleled novel about adapting to a world in unpredictable change.” - Jyllands-Posten ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Participants

Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 2018 for her novel Scar and her works have been translated into 34 languages. She broke through with the novel The Greenhouse, which sold more than 300,000 copies in France and in 2019 received the French literary prize Prix Médicis. In 2022, Ólafsdóttir won the Icelandic Booksellers Award for Best Icelandic Novel for Eden.