ÓFEIGUR SIGURÐSSON
Iceland
Poet and prose writer, Ófeigur Sigurðsson was born in Reykjavík on November 2, 1975. He has published six poetry collections and two novels. He changed many professions: he worked as a uniformed night security guard in a hotel, packed ham and bacon in a factory, "pumped" his muscles as a dock worker and exercised his brain as a philosophy student at the University of Iceland, where he did his thesis on taboos and transgressions in the texts of Georges Bataille.
Ófeigur Sigurðsson is best known for being the leader of the movement that is trying to reconstruct Icelandic poetry, and in his spare time he is one of the best authors of his generation.
Saga of Ion
Translation Meri Kicovska
The novel is set in the period known as the Enlightenment. Then the new way of education was created in European cities, but a number of small revolutions in geography, mathematics, physics, politics and philosophy also took place. As a learned man who finds himself on an island among peasants and fishermen, Ion, with his Christian teachings, is at the center of a juggling act between superstition and scientific evidence. In this novel, the encounter between traditional thinking and the wonders of science is staged. The Ion Saga is an attempt to create sublime prose poetry from the spark that arises when two things fight against each other.
The young priest is soon accused of killing his wife's first husband, and because of that he has to leave the monastery where he served. While traveling, a volcano erupts in one place and covers the rural landscape with a fiery and dusty mantle. He takes refuge in a cave on the coast, writing long and devoted letters to his wife, while describing what happened to him. In the depth of the cave, he fights with his inner demons and fears, he gives all his hope to God, love and his baby.
It is interesting to note that Pastor Jon Steingrimson is a real historical figure with an almost mythological status, he is a religious teacher who, in the 18th century, while holding a mass, known as the Fiery Mass, erupted a volcano in the immediate vicinity. He continued the mass as the lava approached, stopping before the end of the mass, very close to the church itself, while everyone inside remained unharmed.
Winner of European Union Prize for Literature in 2011.