Symposium

I experienced an unanticipated event during my recent trip to Iceland: Symposium on Halldór Laxness: The Nobel Prize for 70 Years. Louise Calais, the Swedish Ambassador to Iceland, opened an exhibition about the Nobel Prize in the lobby of the Nordic House before the symposium began:

Program of the symposium:

Salka – Love and death. The writer Halldór Guðmundsson discussed a new work based on the novel Salka Valka with Unnur Ösp Stefánsdóttir, actor and playwright. Unnar performed a sample from her work.

Excellence from the Outskirts: What a Difference a Nobel Prize Can Make, an overview by Mads Rosendahl Thomsen, professor of literature at Aarhus University and expert in the system of world literature.

The Glacier is Open: On Young People’s Reading of Halldór Laxness’s Works in the Light of Christianity Under the Glacier, by Anna Rós Árnadóttir, literary scholar and poet, read by a young man, perhaps one of her students?

Only Mads speech was in English, but I managed to catch a a little bit from the other presenters. The young man nervously talking about Úa, the female primal force in Under the Glacier, was a highlight. After the speeches there was socializing with drinks and confections.

I was somehow annexed to a trio of women “walking back to town” and we shared some life experiences as we strolled past Suðurjörn, splitting up as we reached Skothúsvegur with two of the women (sisters) going west and the remaining one and I going east. We continued our discussion along Tjörnin until we reached Fríkirkjan (and my apartment) where I reluctantly said goodbye.