About EÖN

Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl (1978) is an Icelandic experimental poet and novelist. His books have been published in over a dozen languages. For his novel Illska (Evil, 2012) he was awarded The Icelandic Literary Prize and The Book Merchant’s Prize, as well as being nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literary Award. When it came out in France in 2015 it was shortlisted for the Prix Médicis Étranger, the Prix Meilleur Livre Étranger and received the Transfuge award for best nordic fiction 2015 (which Eiríkur received again the following year for Heimska). 

 

In 2012 he was poet-in-residence at the Library of Water in Stykkishólmur, in 2013 he was chosen artist of the year in Ísafjörður and in 2014 he was writer-in-residence at Villa Martinson in Sweden, and in 2018 in AIR Krems, Austria. In 2011 his poetry film Höpöhöpö Böks received a Special Mention Award at the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin. For his poetry book, Oralorium, he won the DV cultural prize in Iceland, 2017. For his novel The Bridge over Tangagata he received the Sparibollinn romance prize. 

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Since his debut in 2002 he has published seven books of poems, most recently Óratorrek ("Oralorium", 2017), eight novels, two collections of essays and a cook book. Eiríkur is also active in sound and performance poetry, visual poetry, poetry film and various conceptual poetry projects.

 

Eiríkur has translated over a dozen books into Icelandic, including a selection of Allen Ginsberg’s poetry and Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn (for which he received the Icelandic Translation Award). He lives in Ísafjörður, Iceland, a rock in the middle of the ocean, and spends much of his time in Västerås, Sweden, a town by a lake.