Gunnar Gunnarsson

Gunnar Gunnarsson (born May 18, 1889, Fljótsdalur, Iceland—died November 21, 1975, Reykjavík) was an Icelandic novelist and short-story writer who, like many Icelanders of the 20th century, chose to write in Danish to reach a larger public.

Gunnarsson belonged to a family of parsons and farmers. Having published two collections of verse in Icelandic before he was 17, he went to Denmark determined to become a professional writer. After two winters at the Askov folk high school in Jutland, he earned a precarious living as a freelance writer. In 1912 the first volume of his novel Borgslægtens historie (“The Family from Borg”) appeared. It became a Scandinavian best-seller. The other three parts appeared from 1912 to 1914 (partial Eng. trans., Guest the One-Eyed). Gunnarsson married a Dane and lived and wrote in Denmark until 1939, when he returned to Iceland and became a farmer for several years (while continuing to write, though now in Icelandic). In 1948 he moved to Reykjavík, where he remained until his death.

Gunnarsson followed Borgslægtens historie with more than 40 novels, as well as short stories, articles, and translations. Kirken paa bjerget (1923–28; “The Church on the Mountain”), his five-volume fictionalized autobiography, is often considered his best work and one of the masterpieces of modern Icelandic literature. Although he wrote mostly in Danish, he drew exclusively on his Icelandic background and Icelandic history for his novels. Gunnarsson’s monumental, epic works have been widely translated, and outside Scandinavia they have been particularly popular in Germany.