Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.11.2015, Síða 1

LÖGBERG
HEIMSKRINGLA
The Icelandic Community Newspaper • 1 November 2015 • Number 21 / Númer 21 • 1. nóvember 2015
Publication Mail Agreement No. 40012014 ISSN: 0047-4967
VISIT OUR WEBSITE WWW.LH-INC.CA
An artistic drive fed by
Icelandicness / page 12
The great
fishing voyage
The fateful account of an
1869 expedition / page 6
Dr. Grímur Valdimarsson
explains the transformation of
Iceland’s fisheries / page 5
Steina and
her studio
INSIDE
PHOTO: STEFAN JONASSON
Hunters of
the sea
PHOTO: KAREN BOTTING
Stefan Jonasson
Bestselling author Yrsa Sigurðardóttir enjoyed full houses in both Gimli and Winnipeg during her recent
Canadian speaking and book-signing tour,
which also took her to Calgary, Vancouver,
and Toronto. Excited fans filled the aisles
at Tergesen’s in Gimli on the afternoon of
October 15, while a crowd of about 130
people came out to see her at McNally
Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg that
evening.
At her Winnipeg appearance, Hjálmar
W. Hannesson, Iceland’s consul general in
Winnipeg, welcomed Yrsa to the city and
expressed his personal delight that so many
people had come out for this event and for
Yrsa’s Gimli appearance earlier in the day.
In thanking McNally Robinson for hosting
the evening, as well as other appearances
by Icelandic authors, the widely-travelled
diplomat noted that it is one of his three
favourite bookstores in the world, the other
two being located in New York City and
Hong Kong. He reminded the audience
that, while she’s best known as an author of
popular crime novels, with seven books in
English translation, Yrsa is a civil engineer
by profession and she continues to practice
as a director in one of her homeland’s
leading engineering firms.
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir was then introduced
by John Toews, the bookstore’s events
coordinator, who pointed out that Yrsa’s
recent book, The Silence of the Sea, was the
winner of the 2015 Petrona Award for the
best Scandinavian crime novel of the year
and also noted that several of her books are in
film production. (Later in the evening, Yrsa
revealed that this book had been inspired by
the mystery of the Mary Celeste, a merchant
ship that was found intact but with no one
on board off the Azores in 1872.) Toews
mentioned that a friend of his had said of
Yrsa’s most recent work, “I’m reading it
and now I can’t sleep,” before proceeding
to introduce her as, “the surprisingly
unthreatening Yrsa Sigurðardóttir.”
From children’s books to crime novels
“I started off writing books for children,”
Yrsa began, but after several successful
books she sought to turn her attention to an
adult genre. When she told her publisher, “I
want to write crime fiction,” the response
was, “No, no, no – nobody wants to
read Icelandic crime fiction.” While her
publisher’s conclusion has since proven to
have been wrong, the reasons for arriving
at it seem obvious. “Most Icelandic crime
is stupid,” Yrsa said, pointing out that
Icelanders are simply not very good at
committing heinous offenses. She cited two
recent cases to illustrate her point. In the
country’s first noteworthy blackmail case,
which occurred just this past summer, the
blackmailers actually gave their victim a
receipt. In another case, a motorcycle gang,
which had threatened to cut off the finger
of someone who had run afoul of them, cut
off their victim’s hair extensions instead,
having lost their nerve. With this backdrop
of real-life crime to draw from, writing
Icelandic crime fiction clearly takes a robust
imagination.
“Arnaldur Indríðason broke the ice”
when it comes to writing credible Icelandic
crime fiction, Yrsa said, while observing,
“he writes more in the Scandinavian
tradition.” The latter observation seems to
mean that his lead character is generally “a
policemen who is depressed and alcoholic.”
By contrast, Yrsa’s first main character in
her crime fiction was a woman who worked
as a lawyer. After six books in a series,
however, it became increasingly difficult to
come up with character development that
was both fresh and credible. “There’s only
so much that can happen to a single person,”
she lamented.
Responding to a question later in the
evening, Yrsa said that writing a series is
easier in the beginning, but it gets harder
with each successive volume. In the second
volume, the characters are pretty much
fleshed out, but they still have room to grow
and develop. Later in a series, the characters
become exhausted. A stand-alone novel has
the advantage of “disposable characters.”
From crime to horror
So Yrsa decided to produce a stand-alone
novel of her own and, in the process, she
proudly declared, “I came up with a new way
of killing people.” When she had finished
writing her horror novel, I Remember You –
a departure from normal crime fiction – she
was not entirely satisfied with it and sought
to withhold it from publication, since she
wasn’t sure it was really horrific enough.
... continued on page 2
Left: Yrsa signing books at McNally Robinson. Right: the crowd of fans at Tergesen’s. Below: Hjálmar W. Hannesson,
Iceland’s consul general in Winnipeg, Anna Birgis and Yrsa.
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, a surprisingly
unthreatening weaver of frightening tales
PHOTO: CINDY JONASSON
PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNA BIRGIS
PHOTO COURTESY OF CONSULATE GENERAL OF ICELAND