Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.04.2017, Síða 42

Books 42The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 06 — 2017
The Book Burner
Dagur Hjartarson on the risky
business of publishing
Words: Björn Halldórsson Photo: Timothée Lambrecq
Dagur Hjartarson has just been
shortlisted for the European Union
Prize for Literature for his novel ‘The
Last Confession of Love’. He is also,
along with award-winning poet and
graphic designer Ragnar Helgi Ólafs-
son, one of the founders of Tunglið
(“The Moon,” in English), a publish-
ing house with the unusual business
model of publishing each of its books
in runs of only 69 copies, selling them
exclusively at publishing events
held on the night of a full moon,
and burning any unsold copies.
According to Dagur, the books
published by Tunglið have a dif-
ferent time span from other
books.“Tunglið takes small books
and creates small, precious mo-
ments in time around them,”
he says. “It opposes the eternity
that the average publisher prom-
ises—all those books whose
pages turn yellow on the book-
store shelf—and makes a stand
for the beauty of the moment.
The role of Tunglið is to be the
moment and then disappear.”
The company's unconventional
publishing strategy was a means
of making risk integral to their
work. “Our goal has always been
to run Tunglið at a moderate loss,”
Dagur says. “To do so you natu-
rally have to take chances. Every
book that Tunglið publishes is, in
a way, an attempt to sink Tunglið,
to make it go bankrupt. It's thrill-
ing. Publishing is at heart a risky
business and Icelandic publish-
ers are prone to take chances. We
haven't seen too many new au-
thors in the past few years and I'm
not sure that the publishers are
entirely to blame for that. Young
authors need to be more daring,
write more books and take more
chances. Hopefully we'll see more
new authors in the coming years.”
Dagur’s own first novel was
years in the making, starting in
the early days of his MA in creative
writing. “I think that ‘The Last
Confession of Love’ is closely tied
to the poetry that I've written,”
he explains. “In writing the novel
I found it best to let the writing
flow freely. I found the novel form
to be incredibly liberating and
that feeling certainly left its mark
on the book. I was never trou-
bled by having to throw things
out or worried about ending up
with 200 pages of crap. Writ-
ing crap is a part of the process.”
“Naturally, I ended up throw-
ing a lot of things in the trash,”
he continues. “That doesn't both-
er me, but I was still often filled
with the usual sense of hope-
lessness, which I always experi-
ence at some point when writing,
whether it's a poem, a short story
or an email. It was often hard go-
ing—but it's always hard going.”
As is the case with most Ice-
landic writers, Dagur has to find
time for his writing alongside
his day job—teaching, in his
case. “Not being able to put 100%
of my energy into the manu-
script made everything harder,”
he says. “But mostly, it just con-
firmed what I already knew: you
have to work hard. Even when
you're writing crap, keep writ-
ing. Keep writing, keep writing.”
SHARE: gpv.is/dh06
Two Books
The Greenhouse & On The Cold Coasts
Words: Björn Halldórsson
Each issue, we take a look at two
Icelandic titles old and new, avail-
able in English translation at most
Reykjavík bookstores. If you’d like
more ideas, or to read more on
Icelandic literature, head over
to gpv.is/lit for in-depth author
interviews, guides, and more
book reviews.
Bragi Ólafsson – The Pets
This black comedy of errors has its
narrator, an unassuming young
man named Emil, making the
drastic decision to hide under his
own bed to avoid Havard, a reck-
less friend from his past, leading
to him being trapped there for the
rest the novel, while the interloper
gallivants around his apartment
and makes himself comfortable in
his life—even hosting a party for
Emil's friends and family. From
his vantage point under the bed,
Emil has the chance to voyeuris-
tically observe and obsess over
the social customs and behav-
iors of the guests, and guess at
the thoughts hidden behind their
idle conversations. In opposition
to the frustrations of this absurd
setting, the writing is effortless
and clear, engaging the reader
with humor as well as the endear-
ing ordinariness of the characters,
especially when placed in opposi-
tion to the amoral and puckish
Havard.
Hallgrímur Helgason –
The Hitman's Guide to
Housecleaning
The author of ‘101 Reykjavík’ here
uses the tropes of hardboiled crime
fiction for his own nefarious pur-
poses. The result is a Tarantino-
esque romp like no other. Tomislav
“Toxic” Bokšic is a cocksure hitman
for the Croatian mafia in New York
who needs to go into hiding after
a botched hit. Through a series of
accidents, he ends up in Iceland,
a country where murder is a rar-
ity and gunmen are nowhere to be
found, and is forced to contain his
violent tendencies and take on a
new identity. Soon he is making
strides towards bettering himself
and integrating into this unfamil-
iar and peaceful society. His un-
conventional worldview provides
a unique outsider's perspective
through which to gaze in wonder-
ment upon the absurdities of mod-
ern Icelandic culture and society.
SHARE: gpv.is/2b06
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