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íslenska

Árni Þórarinsson

Bio

Árni Þórarinsson was born in Reykjavík on August first 1950. After finishing high school in Reykjavík in 1970, he studied comparative literature at The University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and gradated with a B.A. degree in 1973.

Árni has worked as a journalist and in the media for years. He started out as a journalist at Morgunblaðið newspaper in the summers of 1971 and 1972, and worked full time at the same paper from 1973 – 1976. He was the editor of the weekend edition of Vísir newspaper from 1976 – 1979, also writing film reviews, and the editor of Helgarpósturinn newspaper from 1979 – 1984, doing critique there as well. He wrote reviews for Morgunblaðið from 1984 – 1986 and did freelance work for radio and television. He was the editor of Mannlíf magazine from 1986 – 1988 and continued working for radio and television until 1999. Árni also worked as a journalist at Morgunblaðið, focusing on interviews and article writing, as well as continuing to write film reviews.

Árni was on the board of the Reykjavík Film Festival in 1989 and 1991 and he has been a member of several panels of judges at international film festivals.

Árni’s first novel, the crime novel Nóttin hefur þúsund augu (The Night Has a Thousand Eyes) was published in 1998, and since then he has sent forward more books about the investigating journalist Einar. He was one of the authors who wrote the novel Leyndardómar Reykjavíkur 2000 (The Reykjavík 2000 Mystery), all of them being members of “Hið íslenska glæpafélag” (Icelandic Crime Writers). He has also written crime novels together with his colleague Páll Kristinn Pálsson. They have written scripts for television together as well, Dagurinn í gær (Yesterday), aired by The Icelandic National Broadcast Company (RÚV) in 1999, and 20/20, which Óskar Jónasson directed for RÚV in 2002. The latter film was nominated for four Edda awards (The Icelandic Film Awards), one of them being for best script of the year. Árni has also published an interview book with filmmaker Hrafn Gunnlaugsson, and his translation of a book for teenagers by the Dutch writer Evert Hartman received the Reykjavík Scholastic Prize in 1984. Some of Árni’s books about Einar have been published in translations.

Author photo: Jóhann Páll Valdimarsson.