Quick Facts
Biography
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (born 1958) is an Icelandic professor of art history, a novelist, playwright and poet.
Early life
Born in Reykjavík, Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir studied the history of art at Sorbonne, Paris.
Career
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir works as an assistant professor of art history at the University of Iceland. For a time, she was the director of the university's Art Museum.
Her first novel Upphækkuð jörð (Raised Earth) was published in 1998. It set the stage for her future works in its fine dissection of the smaller things in life.
Her book Rigning í nóvember (Butterflies in November) was lauded as a "moving, layered and optimistic piece of writing". The book won the Tómas Guðmundsson Literary Award.
In 2009, she published Afleggjarinn (The Greenhouse) to mixed reviews. It was described as meticulous and finely crafted, yet lacking a tension both in its language and friction in its emotion. It was also described as a sweetly comic and wry observation of sex, manhood, death and parenthood.
Works
Novels
- Upphækkuð jörð (Raised Earth), 1998
- Rigning í nóvember, 2004, in English as Butterflies in November, in German as Ein Schmetterling in November
- Afleggjarinn, 2007, in English as The Greenhouse, also translated into French, Spanish, Dutch and Italian
- Undantekningin (The Exception), 2012
- Ör (Scar), 2016
Poetry
- Sálmurinn um glimmer (The Psalm of Glimmer), 2010
Theatre
- Swans mate for life (National Theatre of Iceland, 2014)
Awards
- Tómas Guðmundsson Literary Award of the City of Reykavik, 2004.
- Menningarverðlaun Award, 2008
- Prix Page des Libraires, 2010
Personal life
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir has revealed that her sojourn in Catholic countries and her deep interest in their art and music led her to convert to Roman Catholicism.