Dear Iceland, Until I touched down at Keflavik airport, I didn’t believe in love at first sight. The very idea seemed too wishy-washy, too cliched. But just glimpsing your otherworldly landscape from the window of the plane, I knew I’d made the right decision in coming here to meet you at last. Like your aurora...
It is stranger than fiction and more frightening than any Nordic Noir drama, yet the unsettling disappearances of Guðmundur Einarsson and Geirfinnur Einarsson in 1974 still continue to haunt and fascinate Iceland today. Even for those who haven’t kept up with the case, it’s pretty easy not to become intrigued by the...
Nursing a broken heart after the demise of a relationship, Icelandic film maker Erlingur Ottar Thoroddsen turned the focus back to his first love: film. “I’d just gone through a break-up, lost a big job making another movie and was forced to move from New York back to Iceland,” he explains from Los Angeles, where...
It’s easy enough for most adolescents to feel like a fish out of water at the best of times. But in Iceland, a uniquely solitary country almost equal distance from both London and New York, the sense of isolation and remoteness is arguably stronger than most places in the world. Boys on film: the young lads of...
Summer was in its final stages when my husband, Darrell, and I touched down in Iceland last August, but you’d hardly know it. Cold and raining heavily, I was relieved that I’d packed accordingly: rain gear, hiking boots, coat, warm socks, gloves and lots of long underwear. Layers are the key to comfortable travel...
It says a lot about Iceland as a country that giving books on Christmas Eve is a long-held tradition. With Christmas just around the corner, we’ve compiled a list of recommended reading for anyone wanting to read more by Icelandic writers. Like any list, this one is neither definitive nor complete, (where are the...
If pop-culture is to be believed, Iceland – and indeed much of Scandinavia – must have more murderers than anywhere else in the world. Adding to Nordic noir’s already venerable reputation this year’s worldwide release of Icelandic drama, Trapped (Ófærð), further cemented Scandinavia as the hot-spot for crime...
A dad and child went exploring … (Photo by Sigurdur Svansson) Horse play (Photo by Sigurdur Svansson) Hjálparfoss (Photo by Sigurdur Svansson)
With a population of just 323,000 it can be easy to see Iceland as quaint, but the Scandinavian country is a world away from Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Yet it was their creator, Agatha Christie, who had such an effect on one Icelandic teenager, Ragnar Jonasson, that he went on to write his own best-selling murder...
It’s early evening in California and the sun is still shining. Nine hours away, the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik is also enjoying its summer where the midnight sun burns relentlessly. For Reykjavik-born actor Atli Óskar Fjalarsson, the two are both worlds away. Since leaving Iceland to study acting at college, both...
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