When I ask artists Dísa Björnsdóttir and Ingvar Högni Ragnarsson about running Útúrdúr,¹ a Reykjavik bookstore and publisher, Dísa tells me they “started by answering a need for a more diverse book community.” It’s a theme they’ll repeat again and again: filling a hole, giving society what it’s asking for. For an American it’s a somewhat dizzying prospect; whatever it is that my society wants or needs or asks for, I can’t say I’ve ever had the feeling it was books. Nor have I ever interviewed anyone who said anything similar.

It’s a need that can exist in Iceland for two reasons. First, Iceland has a real, living literary culture with significant historical roots that results in people reading a lot today. Second, the 2008 financial collapse and subsequent governmental revolution made room for discussion in public forums, and made it necessary. Icelanders have a lot to talk about, and they’ll probably be doing it for a long time.

Útúrdúr is located a bit off the main drag in downtown Reykjavik, and when I walk in for our interview a customer is enthusiastically talking to Dísa and Ingvar Högni in English about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. The conversation doesn’t sound anywhere near over, so I listen in and browse the books on the front table and displayed face-out on the racks.

They’re art books, chapbooks, hardcovers, many of them hand-made, some photocopied, in English, in Icelandic, in German, some published by Útúdúr, some by others, all of them in some way or another fascinating. I recognize a few books I’ve seen in the sexier bookshops in Berlin, plus a few copies of McSweeney’s, and an odd Believer. Other than that it’s all new to me.

(photo by Ingvar Högni Ragnarsson)

There are a few pieces of art here and there from an exhibition with Kling & Bang Gallery next door: an enormous felt hand hanging on the wall, a wine-rack stocked with nearly empty Coca-Cola bottles, a wood-framed plexiglass doghouse-thing filled with an inch or so of postcards and newspaper clippings and outfitted with pink neon lighting.

We take a seat at the desk next to the plexiglass doghouse and I receive a cup of the strong Icelandic coffee everyone serves when I interview them. At 28 and 30 Dísa and Ingvar Högni have both recently completed their bachelor’s (Iceland’s system operates along long-studying Scandinavian lines). Ingvar Högni, who also works as a photographer, attributes getting the chance to run an organization like Útúrdúr to the small society they live in: “What’s so interesting about Iceland is we can have these opportunities and get involved just by having that energy and enthusiasm.” Still he and Dísa seem like the kind of intelligent, bright-eyed people who would be doing exciting things anywhere.

Útúrdúr was actually founded as a bookstore in by six artists in 2007, but during their tenure, Dísa and Ingvar Högni are shifting its focus. As Dísa says, “What Iceland is asking for is books relevant to society.” Which is not to say that Útúrdúr didn’t provide that before, but its earlier publications, while often political, were expensive art books with long lead times. Its newer publications will be published more quickly to connect better with current events, and they’ll be more affordable.

Meeting the needs of a community means being in touch with the people who constitute it. “We don’t think of Útúrdúr as just a store or a publishing house,” says Ingvar Högni. “We think of it as a place where you can come and meet people, read, and listen to recordings.”

Later that week I return, this time at night, for a 100,000 Poets for Change event Útúdúr is hosting. I admit I was nervous before showing up — in a city of 120,000 people, how many capable performers can there be, and how many people will want to watch them? At eight there’s a crowd of 20 or so that grows during the next hour until the shop is packed. The audience is convivial but attentive, listening through hours of readings and musical performances. The performers have real talent, and overall the event is really impressive. When I leave at 11, it shows no sign of slowing down.

If it’s community-focused, Útúrdúr is anything but inward-looking. Ingvar Högni and Dísa are enthusiastic about partnerships with bookstores and publishers overseas, and they were positively excited about their upcoming trip to the New York Art Book Fair (now past). For ambitious young people trying to develop an innovative organization on a small island just below the Arctic Circle, the opportunity to meet with their peers face to face and to “make that connection and develop that trust” is invaluable, according to Dísa.

¹ Útúrdur means “detour.”

The seventh annual Reykjavik International Poetry Festival just took place last weekend. Thor Steinarsson co-runs the organization that sponsors the festival, and I had a chance to ask him (and Angela Rawlings) some questions about the organization and event. Why haven’t I named the organization yet? Well, because it’s changing its name, and its focus too. It was formerly known as ‘Nýhil,’ a poetry collective and publisher known for supporting new and innovative writers. Now? Well, Thor doesn’t give it a name yet, but he does give a peek into its new mission.

Note: The change came as a surprise to me too, which is why my questions are addressed to Nýhil.

Tell me a bit about the history of Nýhil, as well as about your structure and mission now. I’ve heard Nýhil was a bit dormant in the past few years, but that things are picking up now; what accounts for the change?

Nýhil has been in operation since 2004, when a group of young poets decided to form a collective to publish and promote cutting-edge work of emerging writers in dialogue with international peers. In 2005, the first international poetry festival was held in an abandoned factory with poets such as Christian Bök and Anna Hallberg. Since then, Nýhil has published close to 50 titles and invited over 40 international guests to the poetry festival.

Nýhil has taken on many forms over the past seven years dependent on the interests of the primary organizers for each year-long period. Organizers who have been involved at various points in the Nýhil collective have recognized that the shifting desires and urgencies of the local community now render the project as “complete”, and a core collective of folks previously involved are now in the exciting stages of closing Nýhil as a project while verging into a new collective that carries with it as a foundation the important groundwork Nýhil laid during its existence. The new collective will have a stronger focus on events, arts education, and translation.

Stylistically Nýhil is experimental/post-avant-ish . . . right? Are there any American or European organizations you would compare yourself to to help non-Icelanders understand what you publish?

Our collective supports hybrid, experimental, post-avant, radical, innovative text (often under the broader definition of poetry). Similar sister organizations to the previous manifestations of Nýhil (particularly as a publishing collective) could include Coach House Books in Toronto; Nokturno.org in Helsinki; BookThug in Toronto; Le Clou Dans Le Fer in Paris; and the Kootenay School of Writing in Vancouver. In terms of our festival and arts education activities, sister organizations might include Krikri Polypoetry Collective in Ghent; Stichting Perdu in Amsterdam; Toronto New School of Writing; and the former Scream Literary Festival in Toronto.

I was told that in Iceland it’s typical for writers to first publish a book of poetry, then later move to novels; does this mean that Icelanders read more poetry than other people? Or take it less seriously?

Young Icelandic authors tend to write poetry at first, before they commit to literary projects with higher word counts. I don’t have an explanation; it might be of cultural reason or economical. The Icelandic grant system might have something to do with it, where you have to show some published works to be more likely to get the government grant. But I don’t think that Icelanders read more poetry than others or take it more seriously.

Is any Nýhil poetry available in English?

Some poets affiliated with Nýhil have had selected poems or books translated into other languages — notably Eiríkur Örn Norddahl. We are actively developing plans for future multilingual anthologies that will feature Icelandic poetry in translation as well as poetry from other languages translated into Icelandic.

How has the festival developed over the years?

The festival began with significant inclusivity (anyone who wanted to could perform), which offered a wonderful marathon of poetry. Over the years and dependent on the shifting interests of the organizers, the festival has taken the form of an opening night, two full evenings of performances (usually featuring between twenty to thirty local and international poets) intercut with musical performances by local musicians, a panel discussion, and a private day trip and dinner that extends the discussion amongst the performers and organizers.

This year, we shifted the structure of the panel discussion to a round-table format in order to provide a non-hierarchical space for everyone in attendance to converse on pertinent socio-poetic issues. We also shifted the focus from people actively identifying their works as “poetry” to consider textual experimentation in a variety of formats (highlighting specifically new media work; cross-, multi-, and interdisciplinary work; and non-conventional publishing translated to performance). We were pleased to witness a performance collaboration by foreign guest Anne Kawala and local poet Elías Knörr which came swiftly after they met in Iceland; it is our hope that collaborations of these kinds will be an exciting component of future festivals, when there is interest between the artists to work together.

Couple quick notes about Icelandic names: Since last names are patronymics—refer to the person’s father, such as Gisla-dottir, or Olafs-son—it’s common practice to refer to someone just by their first name. And in terms of characters, ‘Þ’ can be replaced with ‘th,’ and ‘ð’ can be replaced by ‘d.’

“It started here actually,” says Þórdís Gísladóttir. She and Þorgerður E. Sigurðardóttir are talking with me in Kaffitár, Iceland’s largest coffee shop chain, in downtown Reykjavik. It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon and the place is packed with sweater-clad Icelanders chatting over steaming lattes. Þórdís and Þorgerður are the founders of �ٰ��ܲ����ܲ�ó�첹�����Dz���,¹ Iceland’s most popular book blog.

In December of 2008, Þórdís and Þorgerður sat down in Kaffitár and started talking about blogs. The two had been making radio programs about literature together, and they decided to branch out and do a blog, where they could write about whatever interested them instead of being restricted to an editorial program. �ٰ��ܲ����ܲ�ó�첹�����Dz��� now has fourteen regular writers, all women ranging in age from 25 to 46, who together post one update per day.

“We don’t really think of it as criticism,” explains Þórdís. The plan was always to be open to anything, so you’ll find reviews of chick lit next to literary fiction, recommendations for attractive bookshelves next to postings for readings, and since recently, interviews. Visually it’s a simple blog, though Þórdís says they’re upgrading to a “fancier” WordPress version soon.

gets anywhere from 300–400 to 1,500–1,600 visits per day. “I think that’s everyone who’s interested in literature,” says Þórdís, not joking. Considering that there are about 300,000 native speakers of Icelandic worldwide, it comes out to between 0.1% and 0.53% of all people who potentially could read it.

(It’s worthwhile to note that playing the numbers game in Iceland is a mind-trap for outsiders trying to make comparisons with their home country. The population is so small that it does not scale, so figures should be regarded as a curiosity or a general indication of popularity. The ‘this would be read by 200,000 people a day if it were in English!’ game doesn’t work.)

Þórdís attributes the site’s popularity to the lack of Icelandic alternatives: “If you’re interested, there’s not that much out there.” (This is a common form of Icelandic modesty—‘Oh it’s so small here, there’s no competition!‘—that should be taken with a grain of salt.) The site is read widely by Icelanders abroad looking to stay in touch with book culture at home—there’s a particularly large population in Germany that accounts for a couple hundred visits a week.

Þorgerður adds that Icelanders’ unusual proclivity for Facebook helps online projects like really take off: “Iceland is one of a kind when it comes to Facebook.” I know, I know, how could anyone be more obsessed than us? According to Þorgerður, it’s a deeply networked society: “All of Iceland is on Facebook and everyone is friends with everyone.”

has gotten big enough that several major Icelandic websites have wanted to host it. But according Þórdís, the sites haven’t been exactly what they wanted to be associated with: “The last offer we got was sort of from Iceland’s yellow press.” Þorgerður adds, “We have high standards in terms of the environment we’re in. It’s not just about getting more people to read.”

This was the point at which I really realized just how far Icelandic book culture diverged from either the American or German versions I’m used to, how deeply integrated books were into their media. Can you imagine foxnews.com or bild.de absorbing a major literary website? No, no you cannot. Þorgerður and Þórdís insist the sites only want their traffic, which I don’t doubt, but the fact that a sleazy news site can covet a lit blog’s traffic is telling in itself.

As Iceland’s premiere book bloggers, Þorgerður and Þórdís have a unique overview of Icelandic publishing culture. I asked them about some trends they’d seen recently. In the wake of the financial crisis that rocked Iceland’s economy in 2008, “there’s less coming out,” notes Þórdís.

But new genres have appeared, says Þorgerður. Historical fiction based on the Sagas always existed, but “the trend anyone can see is people are writing suspense, mystery, and crime novels. We take our literature very seriously, so people didn’t write mysteries before. It’s something you just didn’t do.” It’s a shift occurring across the Nordic countries, and one significant enough to be visible to English-speakers via translation.

Though it’s a significant cultural organ, is just a side interest for both women. Þorgerður works for a radio station and Þórdís is an award-winning poet and Swedish-Icelandic translator. “For us this blog is a hobby,” says Þorgerður, “but we’re always thinking about it.”

¹ �ٰ��ܲ����ܲ�ó�첹�����Dz��� means “Book Sluts,” but it actually comes from an Icelandic radio show, not the well-known American book blog of the same name.