Reykjavík Grapevine - 26.08.2011, Blaðsíða 26

26
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 13 — 2011
The year 2011 is a big one for Ice-
landic literature. In October, the
country will be the guest of hon-
our at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and
Reykjavík has just been named
UNESCO's fifth official ‘City of Lit-
erature.’ But for many the main
event remains the biannual Reyk-
javík International Literary Festi-
val. It's staged in early September
(September 7–11 this year) and has
for 26 years imported many of world
literature's biggest names, as well
as featuring most of Iceland's major
authors.
Previous guests include Kurt Vonnegut,
Paul Auster, Isabel Allende, Hanif Ku-
reishi, Nick Hornby, Roddy Doyle, Ha-
ruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood and
Henning Mankell—as well as four No-
bel laureates: Seamus Heaney, Günter
Grass, Jose Saramago and J.M. Coe-
tzee. Herta Müller will be the fifth—and
the first female Nobel laureate to visit
the festival. It happened to be Herta
Müller's 58th birthday when we paid a
visit to Stella Soffía Jóhannesdóttir, the
festival's manager.
I ask Stella how the festival will in-
teract with the Frankfurt and UNESCO
projects. “The festival and Sagenhaftes
[Sagenhaftes Island, the organisation
that oversees the Frankfurt project]
will stage a panel where scholars will
discuss new translations of the sagas.
Then Icelandic authors will speak of
how the sagas have influenced their
own work. There will also be many pub-
lishers arriving because of the Frank-
furt project, as well as a lot of German
journalists and other media people. So
it’s a very fruitful co-operation. Regard-
ing the UNESCO project, one main
criteria for Reykjavík being a UNESCO
City of Literature is that we have a
proper international literary festival,
so that should strengthen the festival.
But it's all quite recent and I don't know
what the next steps will be, whether it
will be annual in the future or if some
other changes might occur."
But are there any special themes
at this festival? According to Stella,
the Nordic literary heritage and mod-
ern Nordic literature are the only pre-
decided themes but as we go over the
schedule other themes appear, even if
no one planned them. The first theme
I noticed was an emphasis on feminist
authors, such as the aforementioned
Herta Müller, Egyptian novelist and hu-
man rights activist Nawal El Saadawi
(who will be interviewed by Ingibjörg
Sólrún, former mayor of Reykjavík and
later Minister for Foreign Affairs) and
Swedish author Sara Stridsberg. Sara
wrote a fictional account of Valerie
Solanas, author of the militant feminist
SCUM manifesto. She also translated
the manifesto into Swedish, but the
Icelandic translator, poet Kristín Svava
Tómasdóttir, is also reading at the festi-
val.
A CITY OF SHELTER
And then there are all the absent writ-
ers. Icelandic author Sjón will discuss
deceased Russian writer and journal-
ist Anna Politkovskaya with Katharina
Narbutovic, who is publishing a book
about Politkovskaya this fall (Politkovs-
kaya was mysteriously killed almost
five years ago after being very critical
of Vladimir Putin and the conflict in
Chechnya).
"Later that night there will be a
reading from her works. I don't know
whether we pull the empty chair, but I
think this is a very fitting event, con-
sidering Reykjavík just became a city
of shelter." That shelter being the so-
called ICORN program for persecuted
authors and the first one will come to
Reykjavík this fall. "It's an international
programme. Authors are provided shel-
ter, get a place to stay and work with-
out being prosecuted by an unfriendly
government." So are they in hiding?
"Some lay very low, hardly leave the
house, but many can be quite visible,
it's simply very different between differ-
ent cases. Salman Rushdie participated
in this programme and was always kept
hidden, but that is not necessarily the
general rule."
The idea of the absent author
was Sjón's idea, and Politkovskaya is
not the only one at the festival. Irène
Némirovsky died in Auschwitz in 1942
but it was only seven years ago that
‘Suite Francaise,’ her novella about life
in occupied France, was released and
became an international bestseller. It
was her daughter, Denise Epstein, who
discovered the manuscript and she will
read from her mother's work at the fes-
tival. Finally there is the Icelandic novel-
ist Thor Vilhjálmsson, who passed away
this year and the festival is dedicated to
him. "He was the founder of the festival
and was always on the board. He had a
big say in which authors were invited,
he always had strong opinions on that."
So how are authors chosen? "We
call for ideas from different people.
From the publishers too, we ask what
they are translating or what they are in-
terested in translating. Those sitting on
the board have very clear ideas about
how they like the festival to be and we
also try to make sure it's a literary event
but not just the most popular authors;
we don't want to be swamped by crime
authors, even if they are popular, that's
not the main thing at such a festival."
PORTRAITS OF THE ARTISTS
But is it easy getting authors to attend?
"Yes, it's usually surprisingly easy. Ev-
erybody wants to come to Iceland,
people feel it's exotic, it's usually not in
the way but if they're invited they are
eager to come. The festival is also very
special because of the closeness. David
Sedaris visited two years ago, he usu-
ally reads to between 3.000 to 10.000
people each night, and then he comes
here and reads for a hundred people.
He absolutely loved it, to be able to talk
to and connect to his readers."
But why a literary festival? Are the
books themselves not enough? "To
get to meet the author and see him
or her read, that's always something
special. To see them read in their own
language, in their element ... and also
the interviews and panels, getting into
the writer’s head and learn about their
experiences." It should be noted that si-
multaneously the text is translated on a
screen behind the stage, into Icelandic
for the foreign authors and into English
for the Icelandic authors. Over half of
the foreign authors have been trans-
lated into Icelandic or will be translated
in the next few months; most of them
are available in English as well.
Two photo exhibitions will run dur-
ing the festival. One about the life of
the aforementioned Irène Némirovsky,
and the other features portraits of the
guests of previous festivals, taken by
many of Iceland's finest photographers.
But how has Stella's picture of previous
guests developed? "You usually have a
pre-conceived picture of the author—
then they come and are totally differ-
ent," she says and reminisces about
J.M. Coetzee’s 2007 visit. "Everybody
told us he was so cold and distant and
never willing to do anything. Every-
body was a bit shy in the beginning,
but then it turned out he wanted to do
everything for everybody. It didn't mat-
ter what, he did it. He came to all the
parties and cocktail functions, he read,
gave lectures and everything."
However, he didn't give any inter-
views and Stella tells me Herta Müller is
in the same boat. I can't help but won-
der if Nobel Prize winners dislike jour-
nalists. "Then there are always some
prima donnas," she continues and
mentions an unnamed author who had
high standard for hotels. "He didn't find
Hótel Holt good enough. So we drove
all over town, checked on all the rooms
... but these are the exceptions, most
are very easygoing and helpful."
“David Sedaris visited two years ago, he usually reads to
between 3.000 to 10.000 people each night, and then he
comes here and reads for a hundred people. He absolutely
loved it, to be able to talk to and connect to his readers.”
Literature | Smorgasbord
Grapevine warms up for the Reykjavík International Literary Festival
Famous Authors And Absent Authors
ÁSGEIR H. INGÓLFSSON
JULIA STAPLES
The Reykjavík Literature Festival is always lots of fun!
Check Grapevine.is for some of our author picks for this edition.