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on 11/19/02 5:18 AM, Stuart Ross at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Árni Ibsen wrote:
>
>> Who is your favourite author?
>>
>> A string of meaningless names to English speaking poets.
>
> I had the immense pleasure of meeting three Icelandic authors in
> September, at the Ottawa International Writers Festival.
>
> An amazing playwright named Hávar Sigurjónsson, who presented an
> English reading of his play Angels. Daring, brilliant stuff. And
> Hávar was an extremely nice and interesting guy.
I'm very happy to read this, Stuart. I almost got there myself (to Ottawa,
that is), I personally guided the ottawa person around over here. Hávar is a
close friend of mine and I both read his play and saw the first production
of it last year. And I was there, in St. Petersburgh, when the Russians gave
their own, inflamed staged reading of it. And the last time I saw him was
today, lunchtime. There's a wonderful joke / moment of self-discovery I
enjoyed with Hávar in St. Petersburg. He was walking around in the snow
feeling as miserable as the rest of us, silently plotting to tell all those
miserable-looking Russians that they looked just too miserable to be alive
when he suddenly realized he himself looked just as miserable as the rest of
them which could just as well be the cause of their miserable expressions.
> A young poet and novelist named Andri Snaer. Also a nice guy! He had some very
> innovative approaches to spreading the poetry to the public.
Andri Snćr is really clever and has the rare knack to get noticed in his own
sweetly smiling, humble and subdued sort of way! (A better children's writer
than poet). How he sold his second collection of poems is just too unreal to
be related in polite society. He called it Bonus-Ljod (Bonus-Poetry), Bonus
being the backbone of the Baugur Group of investors of English fame, a
string of inexpensive food shops called BONUS, which used to and still does
pack everything into yellow and pink Bonus-marked packages. So there was
Bonus-Coffee, Bonus-Lamb, Bonus-Haddock, Bonus-Mops, etc. etc. etc. And
Bonus-Poems! By Andri Snćr Magnason. In the traditional yellow and pink
cover! Can all you guys imagine something called Tesco-Poems, printed in an
edition of several million copies emblasing the Tesco emblem? That's the
sort of scale we're talking here.
> Are all you Icelandic folks really nice?
Oh, we are. We are. Especially I! I nurture it. I'm even nicer than anyone
could ever imagine. The OED should have my picure right next to the
adjective 'nice'.
> A novelist named Hallgrímur Helgason, author of 101 Reykjavik. He was
> there for a screening of the film of the same name. He was big and
> scarey-looking, and I didn't talk to him very much. I don't know if
> he was nice.
Hallgrimur is very much ok. He just looks scary without his hair. He's been
very generous about anything I do (Which makes him more than ok). And it's
far removed from whatever he does any day of the week. He's also a painter
and cartoonist. A genuine provocateur with a voice slowly getting soft as
the years pass. But just about the only person to tell the current and
horrid government just how stupid and crooked they are! He even earned the
'honour' of actually being summoned for a private meeting with the Prime
Minister last month, who was 'rather' pissed off about his writing,
especiaclly since 'the right' had had occasion to 'claim' him only 10 months
previously. He's managed singlehandedly to sharpen the view of politicts up
here and the general public feels very strongly the PM blundered very
seriously when summoning Hallgrimur personally to tell him off about his
writing.
> I wanna go to Iceland.
Do come. Do come. We'll all be here and smiling. Plus all the volcanoes.
We're all 'nice', volcanoes and all (erupting or not).
> Stu
> in Toronto
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