Ófeigur Sigurðsson

Ófeigur Sigurðsson was born in Reykjavik in 1975. He studied philosophy at the University of Iceland and completed his BA degree there in 2007.

His first book was a poetry book called Skál fyrir skammdeginu (Cheers to winter darkness) which was published in 2001. Further volumes of poems, including Handlöngun, Roði and Provence í endursýningu, have followed. In 2005, his first novel, Áferð (Texture) was published. The second, Jón, followed in 2010 and brought the author considerable attention. It was about a famous priest, Jón Steingrímsson, who lived in the 18th century, taking the form of letters from him to his pregnant wife.

Ófeigur published the novel Landvættir (Land guardians) in 2012 and Öræfi in 2014, which was highly praised and became a bestseller, and the author received both the Icelandic Literature Prize and the Bookshop Staff Prize for the bookstore staff for that book. His most recent novel, Heklugjá, appeared in 2018.

Ófeigur received the European Union Literature Prize in 2011 for Jón; this was the first time the prize was given to an Icelandic work of fiction. The author was nominated for the Icelandic Translation Prize for his translation of Roberto Bolano's Amulet. His books have been translated and published in both Europe and the United States.