Iceland

For yet another year, Iceland is on track to cement its reputation for being the most literary society in Scandinavia’s already hugely literate constellation of nations and peoples, with Jólabókaflóð. That, when you’ve finished trying to wrap your tongue, or even your eyes, around it, is Iceland’s annual “Christmas book flood,” when Icelandic publishers release a […]

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It is hard to avoid writers in Reykjavik. There is a phrase in Icelandic, "ad ganga med bok I maganum", everyone gives birth to a book. Literally, everyone "has a book in their stomach". One in 10 Icelanders will publish one.

"Does it get rather competitive?" I ask the young novelist, Kristin Eirikskdottir. "Yes. Especially as I live with my mother and partner, who are also full-time writers. But we try to publish in alternate years so we do not compete too much."

Christopher Hitchens once remarked – or repeated – that: “Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.” Evidently Iceland doesn’t agree. At least according to a BBC News report that highlights the astonishing literary productivity of this small nation of just under 322,000 people – one in [...]

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The mysterious purchaser of the domain name Righthaven.com has come forward and revealed his plans for the site using it. The intention of the new Righthaven site is to provide a Switzerland- and Iceland-based web-hosting haven for web publishers whose works might attract the sort of frivolous litigation exemplified by the previous owner of the [...]

The Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's biggest book publishing congress, is to feature 7,384 exhibitors and give a place of honour to Iceland, organizers said Tuesday, a day before business starts. Iceland's President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson was scheduled to address a ceremony on Tuesday evening where German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle was to inaugurate the annual event.