Steinunn Sigurdardottir (b.1950) is a novelist, poet, short-story writer and translator, whose hallmark is her sympathetic but at the same time ironic perception of human behaviour - in particular, love. Her style is at once enchanting and humorous, sensitive and sharp.

Hanami - The Story of Halfdan Fergusson

(Hanami, Sagan af Hálfdani Fergussyni, 1997)

A wickedly funny novel that tells the story of a van driver and family man in Reykjavík who suddenly realizes to his horror that he is dead, but that neither his wife nor his closest friends are willing to accept the fact. He finds a way out of this crisis by staging his own death. He attends his own funeral and flees to Japan.

Sold to: Sweden (Forum)

Heart Place

(Hjartastaður, 1995)

The Icelandic Literary Prize

Nomination for the Nordic Council Literary Prize

Nomination for the European Aristeion Literary Award

A single mother from Reykjavík escapes to the countryside to try to find her bearings, with three companions: her best friend, her "accidental" daughter and her dead mother. A travelogue through Iceland and into the soul, in quest of love and the self.

Sold to: Sweden (Forum), Denmark (Rosinante/Munksgaard), France (Denoel), Norway (Cappelen), Finland (Otava), German edition/Switzerland (Ammann)

The Thief of Time

(Tímaþjófurinn, 1986)

Describes a female teacher's self-discovery through an anguished love affair with a fellow teacher. A powerful exploration of the dissolution of time in the face of self-destructive love.

English translation available.

A major motion picture directed by Yves Angelo is based on the novel, starring Emanuelle BŽart and Sandrine Bonnaire.

Sold to: Sweden (Trevi/Paperback rights: Bok för alla), Denmark (Rosinante/Munksgaard), France (Flammarion), Belgium/Netherlands (Manteau/Meulenhof), German edtion (Ammann/Paperback rights: Fischer)

Literary Agent: Leonhardt og Höier Literary Agency

"Sigurdardottir unites an exciting and entertaining narrative with the artistic depth displayed in her web of different eras, and most of all in her exact and pliable use of language, leaving the reader feeling he is witnessing the birth of the novel itself."

Dagens Nyheter

"Her humour and the playful, extremely inventive writing style make the reading a joy not unlike reading Halldor Laxness when he was at his best."

Politiken

"Sigurdardottir describes this process of disintegration with great consequence and gives it a stangely fascinating form . . . In a wonderfully absurd fashion it becomes clear that this life could only find a way to itself by getting out of hand."

Der Spiegel

"Steinunn Sigurdardottir is brilliant in this novel where imagination, humour and narrative joy abound in a strange combination of realism and absurdity."

Morgunbladid newspaper

"The novel is unusual, original and full of embarassing gaiety, the object of humour being the serious issue of death."

TMM Literary Magazine