Pétur Gunnarsson

Oddur Pálsson (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), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Sven Hakon Rossel (Universitat Wien), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London)

Dates

Born 15 Jun 1947
Activity 1973-ongoing

Places

Active in Iceland

Activities

Primary

Writer / Author

Resources

af jarðarinnar hálfu
byrja allir dagar fallega

[on the earth’s behalf
all days start beautifully]

These are the first lines of the poem “eitt” [one], the first poem in the book Splunkunýr dagur [Brandnew day], and they are illustrative for its author’s position in much of his work: the new day and the beauty of normal life are some of his recurrent topics (see Arthúr Björgvin Bollason 2023). Splunkunýr dagur was published in 1973 and was Pétur Gunnarsson’s first book to be released. He would become a leading figure in Icelandic literature for half a century.

Pétur Gunnarsson is well known for his novels, poetic works, biographical books of Icelandic writers and translations of French literature into Icelandic. He was born in Reykjavík in 1947, and after finishing the secondary school Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík in 1968...

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1321 words

Citation: Pálsson, Oddur. "Pétur Gunnarsson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 January 2025 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=15256, accessed 14 December 2025.]