The Savage Mountain When John Snorri Sigurjónsson was 14 years old, he flipped open a magazine and fell in love with a mountain. “From that point onward,” he would later remark, “there was only one mountain in my eyes.” He may have been referring to an article from 1987, which ran under the heading “Suicide […]
You dumped me during a recession. You’d just lost your job at the ad agency. You said you needed to make a radical change in your life, you’d run aground, were stranded, it was over, and yet, you said, you wanted to part on good terms and before I could think whether I wanted to […]
Would you believe me if I told you that Icelandic is not a particularly unique language? Or that it’s not in immediate danger of dying out? What if I told you it’s not a “small” language at all? And what if I insisted that Icelandic is well on its way to conquering the digital world? […]
WHEN URBANISATION HAPPENED, IT DIDN’T DESTROY THE COUNTRYSIDE, IT’S STILL THERE BUT IT DOESN’T DICTATE OUR BEHAVIOURAL PATTERNS LIKE IT USED TO. NOW WE’RE ENTERING THE CLOUD BUT THE CITY WILL REMAIN. WE’LL GO TO CAFES AND GO TO WORK BUT THE FOUNDATIONAL RECOGNITION OF OUR EXISTENCE WILL NOT BE BASED ON THE STREET WE […]
During the summer solstice, construction workers pave new roads in the night. It’s late June. The skies are clear. The yellow vests are grimy. Above the banks of lake Þingvallavatn, a crew of men are laying asphalt – working on a stretch of road maybe a kilometre long. As the dump trucks come and go, […]
The first impression I got of her was from her brother. It must have been a few months back. He was saying how she had returned to training after Christmas and declared that she was in much better shape than them. “I outran ’em all,” she had said. Not like she was referring to the second […]
A tale of Arctic foxes, empty beaches, and a journey into the Hornstrandir wilderness The northern coast of the Westfjords is known as Hornstrandir. To get there, you drive as far as you can go and sail for as far as the local boat will take you. After that, there’s nothing to do but walk, […]
Recently, national coverage of high-pro.file sexual assault cases gave second wind to the #metoo movement in Iceland, renewing discussion of the power imbalance between celebrities accused of sexual violence and their accusers. A few of the cases mentioned on social media allegedly involved famous footballers and voices calling for justice grew louder, putting pressure on […]
