Various Literary Institutions and Libraries
Icelandic Literature is a website in English containing information about contemporary Icelandic authors and their work. It was launched in October 2001. Here you will be able to find information about authors of poetry and fiction; novel- and short story writers, authors of children's books and playwrights. You can read new articles by Icelandic critics on the authors, personal essays from the authors written for the web, biographical information and bibliography, as well as excerpts from published works.
The National and University Library of Iceland is a research library. According to a new law passed in 1994 the library shall provide for the needs of all those engaged in research. Its two main functions are to gather together as comprehensively as possible all Icelandic materials, and to provide for the needs of teaching and research activities at the University of Iceland.
Its online library system, Gegnir, hosts a union catalogue of about 120 Icelandic libraries on the Internet. It gives information about books, serials, Icelandic journal articles and other holdings of these libraries.
The institute's role is to promote Icelandic culture and research into it, both past and present, in all parts of the world, and to build up links between scholars in this field in Iceland and abroad.
Every two years in the autumn a selection of the best-known writers in Iceland and from around the world gather together at the Reykjavik International Literature Festival. In the twenty years since its inauguration the guests of the festival have included such luminaries as Günter Grass, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Isabel Allende, José Saramago, Annie Proulx, Haruki Murakami, A.S. Byatt, Lars Saabye Christensen, Kurt Vonnegut, Fay Weldon and many more.
The Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute of Foreign Languages is a research institute within the Humanities Faculty of the University of Iceland. The Institute is a research centre for those faculty members who teach modern languages and cultures, the classical languages, and translation studies. Since 1st October 2001 the Institute has had the honour of bearing the name of Ms. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, former President of Iceland, 1980-1996.
Gljúfrasteinn was the home and workplace of Halldór Laxness (winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955) and his family for more than half a century. It has now been opened to the public as a museum, unchanged from when Laxness lived there. In the reception building you can watch a multimedia presentation dedicated to Laxness’s life and work. In the beautiful countryside right next to Gljúfrasteinn, visitors can take walks as part of their visit, to see where Laxness spent his childhood and, in later life, sought his inspiration.
Klaustrid (the Monastery) is a residence for artists, writers and scholars, Icelandic or foreign. The residence is managed by The Institute of Gunnar Gunnarsson. It includes a small apartment and workroom in the unique farmhouse, Skriduklaustur, which was built in 1939 by the famous Icelandic writer Gunnar Gunnarsson.
One of the main objectives of Snorrastofa is to be a centre of the dissemination of Icelandic literature and medieval history. This is done both through research projects and with new exhibitions with the emphasis on the literary works by Snorri Sturluson and the medieval time in Reykholt.
The Icelandic Dramatists' Union is an independent organization of playwrights and scriptwriters in Iceland. Its main purpose is the protection of the artistic, moral and pecuniary rights of its members, and the promotion of contemporary Icelandic playwrighting.