Undína (Helga S. Baldvinsdóttir)

Birna Bjarnadóttir (University of Iceland)

Ed. by Ármann Jakobsson, University of Iceland
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.3.4: Icelandic Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Ármann Jakobsson (University of Iceland), Sven Hakon Rossel (Universitat Wien), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London)

Dates

Born 3 Dec 1858
Died 23 Oct 1941

Places

Active in Iceland

Activities

Primary

Writer / Author

Resources

Baldvinsdóttir's Works

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Helga Steinvör Baldvinsdóttir (1858–1941), who wrote under the pseudonym Undína, was one of the leading pioneer poets among Icelandic immigrants to North America. Her poetry manifests a life-long attachment to and engagement with the language, culture, and heritage of her land of birth. Still, her poetics of migration and exile is also brimming with universal and extraterritorial elements, and her perception of emigration, which results in an equivocal sense of being and place, can be said to herald, in part, the poetics of better-known emigrants in world literature, including figures like W. G. Sebald (1944–2001).

Born on 3 December 1858 on the farm Litla-Ásgeirsá in Víðidalur, North Iceland, Helga’s parents were Baldvin Helgason (1826–1905) and Soffía Jósafatsdóttir

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2859 words

Citation: Bjarnadóttir, Birna. "Undína (Helga S. Baldvinsdóttir)". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 May 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14863, accessed 21 November 2024.]