Diversity of voices, diversity of languages : one week of events and readings in Lyon and in the Rhône-Alpes region.
Jón Kalman Stefánsson
Jón Kalman Stefánsson © C. Hélie - Gallimard
POET / NOVELIST
Iceland
BiographY
Born in Reykjavik in 1963, Jón Kalman Stefánsson is a poet, novelist and translator. After Stefánsson finished high school, he worked in western Iceland (in fishing and and masonry, for example) then began studying literature at the university. During this period, he taught in various high schools and wrote articles for the newspaper Morgunblaðið. He then moved to Copenhagen, where he held various jobs and read a lot. He returned to Iceland and worked as a librarian at the Mosfellsbær library until 2000. Since then he has worked full time at writing stories and novels, in which he humorously describes a somewhat idealized rural Iceland, populated with fairly peculiar, unique characters. He received the Iceland Prize for Literature in 2005. Following on the success of his first book to be published in France, La tristesse des anges, the second volume a magnificent Icelandic trilogy, was published in 2011. The third volume is currently being translated.
