Bergsveinn Birgisson

From Bergsveinn Birgisson

They might say of me, as they said of Ólafur the stout (later Ólafur the holy) in Gerpla, that I grew up in the keels of boats to the sound of rough language. When I was eight I spent the odd day fishing lumpsucker with my father, the summer of my thirteenth year I worked a trawler for half a lay. By fourteen I was manning a trapdoor on deck, loosing nets to the screams of a man in a window. From the time I was eighteen until I received my magister degree in Nordic studies in 1998, I spent my summers working a small motorboat in the north. I have had the privilege to meet many good people and good storytellers; people who kindled my interest in the existensial.

On the other hand I’ve dedicated my life to Nordic studies, receiving my doctorate from the University of Björgvin in 2008. As an academic I try to use both parts of the brain, not just the one reserved for reasoned thought. I am an expert in court poetry, for which I usually receive words of sympathy. I am not interested in court poetry in and of themselves. I am interested in the person, its thoughts and customs. And court poetry is the only original reference as to how people used to think here in the north before the people’s minds were invaded by greco-roman culture, by way of Christianity and the church. As an author, my academic studies have enabled me get to the core of any given thing, to discover how people remember through stories and poetry, and what a story or a poem needs to contain in order to etch itself into a person’s memory. The modern author communicates with the very same human brain as did the court poet; the principle is the same. Reading the classics can clear a path through many difficulties.

I have also had the privelege of experiencing the cultural institution that is the Icelandic farmstead, and I believe I have also seen a glimpse of the middle ages through my grandparent’s farm. I sometimes frame my writings in this only «Icelandic» world which I know, but as an author I am occupied first and foremost by questions of the existensial. My dream was to be a philosopher, but fate made me a philologist. The dream is partly realized by other means. In the years 1993-1994 I travelled across Africa and Asia. This had a substantial impact in my life and aroused my curiosity for the history of my people.

A guiding light in my writing has been Osip Mandelstam’s theory, that if one means to create works of literature one need not believe in God, nor a person nor a person’s ideology, but one must believe in the word. If one does not believe in the word, one should stop writing. And, one might say, belief in the word carries with it belief in the person.

Bergsveinn Birgisson

On individual works

Svarte vikingen

Grønlie, Siân: "Den svarte vikingen. By Bergsveinn Birgisson" (critique)
Saga-book 2015, vol. 39, pp. 131-33.

2017 - The Royal Norwegian Order of Merit, Knight 1st Class, for outstanding work in service of Norway and mankind

2010 - The Icelandic Bookseller's Award: Svar við bréfi Helgu (A Reply to Helga's Letter)

Nominations

2012 - The Nordic Council's Literature Prize: Svar við bréfi Helgu (A Reply to Helga's Letter)

2010 - The Icelandic Literature Prize: Svar við bréfi Helgu (A Reply to Helga's Letter)

2003 - The Icelandic Literary Award: Landslag er aldrei asnalegt (The Landscape is Never Corny)