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íslenska

Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir

Bio

Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir was born in Reykjavík on October 21st 1942, and grew up there. She graduated with a Mag. Art degree in film studies from Moskow School of Film in 1969. From 1970 – 1975 she worked as Assistant Director at Teatro Estudio in Havana, Cuba. While living in the Soviet Union and on Cuba, she wrote and translated articles for Icelandic newspapers. Ingibjörg moved back to Iceland in 1975 and worked as a journalist and film critic for Þjóðviljinn newspaper for a number of years.

In 1981 Ingibjörg became a full time poet and translator. Her first collection of poetry, Þangað vil ég fjúga (I Want to Fly There), was published in 1974. Ingibjörg published seven books of poetry, two of which were collections of her previous work. Her poetry has been translated to Hungarian, German, Latvian, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Russian, English and the Scandinavian languages. She received numerous recognisions for her work, both her poetry and translations. Her book of poetry, Hvar sem ég verð (Wherever I Will Be), won the Icelandic Literature Prize in 2002.

Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir was one of Iceland's best known translators of literature, mainly from Spanish and Russian. Among her outstanding translations are several novels by Dostojevski and Bulgakov. She also translated numerous plays and her poetry and short story translations were published in literary magazines and read on Icelandic radio.

Ingibjörg was a member of the board of the Icelandic Writer's Union from 1992-1998, and its Chairman from 1994-1998. She was co-editor of Tímarit Máls og menningar literary magazine from 1993-2000.

Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir passed away in November of 2016.