Milli mála - 2020, Blaðsíða 211
Milli mála 12/2020 211
ANGELA RAWLINGS, LARA W. HOFFMANN, RANDI W. STEBBINS
10.33112/millimala.12.7
tural House) department of the City Library to participate in a for-
eign artists project where she will facilitate cultural activities for
children and families. Marcinek has likewise created workshops to
support fellow writers, focused on podcast production and creative
writing for Polish women in Iceland.
Without opportunities in Iceland’s official publishing industry,
foreign-origin authors are more likely to seek self-publishing oppor-
tunities or international contracts. This places the writers in precari-
ous situations where they are less likely to be financially supported
by the communities in which they contribute and subjected to local
isolation from the larger national literary context. Cova, for example,
will self-publish her second book in 2020 – a collection of short sto-
ries for adult readers. The trailblazing of foreign-origin authors,
though, does contribute to the diversification of Iceland’s publishing
industry.
9. Discussion and conclusion
Ós stepped into the publishing world of Iceland in order to allow as
many voices as possible to participate in literature. In a country that
rightly prides itself on its literary past and present, participating in
literature production that is a way of claiming social space, printed,
virtual, and physical, for immigrants and other marginalized people.
In order to do this, Ós publishes multilingual literature, which, as
has been discussed in this paper, breaks with traditional ideas of
what is Icelandic literature and, therefore, with monolithic concepts
of national literature.65
Ós makes a public record of their thoughts through writing and
other creative pursuits, allowing for a more informed public and a
broader understanding of who comprises that public. If we return to
Dewey and Greene’s idea of democracy taking place in a community
that is always in the making, Ós is an example of a democratic com-
munity for the authors it has published and its members. For exam-
ple, Ós authors grant the organization a license for use of their work,
never the copyright, but Ós still asks for permission to use work in
65 Rossich, Albert, “An Overview of Literary Multilingualism”.