Oddný Eir
WINNER
WINNER
Biography
Oddný Eir Ævarsdóttir was born in 1972. She completed a doctoral minor degree at Sorbonne University, as well as carrying out research in Icelandic museum field studies. She has written three autobiographical novels, translated and edited literary works, organised visual arts events and ran a visual arts space in New York and Reykjavík (Dandruff Space) in collaboration with her brother, archaeologist Uggi Ævarsson. Together they run the publishing company Apaflasa (Monkey Dandruff). She has also worked as editor of the environmental web site Náttúra.info. Heim til míns hjarta was nominated for the cultural prize of the newspaper DV in 2009. Jarðnæði was nominated for the Icelandic Literary Award in 2011 and won the Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize in 2012.
Nominated book : Jarðnæði (Land of love; plan of ruins)
Summary
Land of Love, Plan of Ruins is written in the form of a diary, describing a period in the narrator’s life where she is preoccupied by the search for a place to belong and an urge to settle down. Paradoxically enough, this drives her to embark on all kinds of journeys, physically and mentally, through time and space, in order to find answers to questions that not only concern her personally but also the whole of mankind. She explores various modes of living, ponders different types of relationships and contemplates her bond with her family, land and nation; trying to find a balance between companionship and independence, movement and stability, past, present and future.
As in her two earlier novels, Oddný Eir’s text verges on the autobiographical and is thus highly personal. At the same time it is philosophical in nature, even scholarly at times. Furthermore, her inclination towards fantasy always shines through, as she creates her own version of the reality around us, making her descriptions of the dilemmas of daily life first and foremost an inner journey of a vivid imagination.
Related publications
EUPL Anthology 2014
Various authors