International Authors' Stage: Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (IS)
What hope is there in the power of language in a world with climate crisis and dying languages? This is what award-winning Icelandic author Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir examines in her latest novel.
Endangered nature and endangered languages
In a world full of crises, where every day overflows with depressing news about weather records, what can the individual person do with their concern and their hope? The award-winning Icelandic author Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir addresses this in her current novel Eden, which was published in Danish in 2023.
Climate crisis may sound heavy, but in Ólafsdóttir's writing, the serious goes hand in hand with the light and the humourous. In Eden, the climate crisis is a common human condition and an everyday experience – at the same time, the novel is imbued with a playful and imaginative use of both language and plot. In the book, we follow the linguist Alba, who begins to plant a forest on an otherwise barren plot of land – perhaps to offset the CO2 of her many flights to conferences on dying languages.
In September, you can meet Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir in the Queen's Hall for a conversation about her writing, the climate crisis, hope and the power of language.
Book signing after the event
After the event, you can meet the author at a book signing in The Diamond's shop, where you can also buy the author's books. You are also welcome to bring books from home to the signing.
Participants
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 2018 for her novel Scar and her works have been translated into 34 languages. She broke through with the novel The Greenhouse, which sold more than 300,000 copies in France and in 2019 received the French literary prize Prix Médicis. In 2022, Ólafsdóttir won the Icelandic Booksellers Award for Best Icelandic Novel for Eden.
