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íslenska

Bragi Ólafsson

Bio

Bragi Ólafsson was born in Reykjavík on August 11, 1962. He studied Spanish at the University of Iceland for one year and at the University of Granada in Spain 1985 – 1986. He has done a number of jobs in Reykjavík, at the post office, in a bank and a record store and was a member of different music bands for a number of years. One of them was the Sugarcubes, and Bragi toured with them in Europe and America.

Bragi's first published work, the poetry collection Dragsúgur (Draught), appeared in 1986. Since then, he has published other books of poetry, short story collections, plays and novels. His first novel, Hvíldardagar (Days of Repose) was nominated for the Icelandic Literature Prize in 1999 and the next one, Gæludýrin (The Pets) also in 2001. He received the DV Cultural Prize for the novel Samkvæmisleikir (Party Games) in 2004 and his novel Sendiherrann (The Ambassador) was nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 2008.

Bragi is one of the founders of the publishing company Smekkleysa (Bad Taste) which has mostly published music and arranged happenings of all kinds. He has translated poetry and the novel City of Glass (Glerborgin) by Paul Auster. His own poetry has been published in foreign translations in collections and magazines, and some of his novels have also been published in translations.

Author photo: The Reykjavík Museum of Photography.