Arthúr Bollason

Arthúr Björgvin Bollason (* 1950 ) is an Icelandic journalist, writer and translator.

Life

After his parents separated shortly after his birth, Arthúr Bollason grew up with his grandparents in Reykjavík , who inspired him to love the ancient poetry and literature of Iceland. His mother went to Canada as a model, his father to the United States. His parents later found each other again and got married in the USA, where Arthur's father was the head of Icelandair , and had four daughters. As a child, Bollason spent numerous summer holidays with his parents in New York. As a student, he was selected to work as a messenger for the Presidential Office and the Icelandic Ministry of Culture.

At the suggestion of his German teacher, he studied literature and philosophy in Germany after graduating from high school as a scholarship holder of the German Academic Exchange Service . He then worked in Iceland as a high school teacher and lecturer at the university. Arthúr Bollason also moderated a philosophical series on state radio. He later returned to Germany to work on his doctorate in Munich, but mainly worked as a foreign correspondent for the radio. For a series of talks he interviewed politicians such as Willy Brandt , Kurt Waldheim , Otto Schily and Daniel Cohn-Bendit . He hosted a culture magazine on Icelandic television and became a well-known television personality. Arthúr gained particular popularity in his home country when he publicly sided with the farmers 'association after broadcasting a polemical film against the farmers' association on state television and was then dismissed as the personal assistant to the television director.

From September 1999 Arthúr Bollason was director of the Icelandic Saga Center in Hvolsvöllur . He translated works by Friedrich Schiller , Heinrich Heine , Friedrich Nietzsche , Hans Magnus Enzensberger , Sten Nadolny , Bernhard Schlink and Richard David Precht as well as the memoirs of Traudl Junge into Icelandic. The author of several travel guides published a literary travel guide about his homeland in 2008 and is considered one of the most important mediators of Icelandic culture in Germany. In 2011, a four-part box set with recordings of Icelandic sagas was released with his participation .

Arthúr Bollason is the father of four children and lives in Germany.

Fonts

• The Iceland Reader. Country portrait. MANA-Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95503-076-6
• Discover & experience Iceland. Mairs geographer. Verlag, Ostfildern 1996, ISBN 3-89525-242-5
• Iceland. A travel companion. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-458-35041-5
• The most beautiful Icelandic sagas. (as publisher) Insel-Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-458-35744-5
• The saga recordings. (4 CDs) Supposé, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86385-001-2

Web links

• Literature by and about Arthúr Bollason in the catalog of the German National Library
• Author page: Author information from the MANA publishing house. Arthur Bollason from September 2017
• Paul Stänner: Stories of Peasants and Slaves. Arthur Bollason, narrator of Icelandic sagas , Deutschlandradio Kultur, October 4, 2011

Individual evidence

1. ^ WDR 5 table talk from June 15, 2011
2. ↑ Henryk M. Broder : Number witches and day songs , Der Spiegel of 25 September 2000

Note: Icelanders are referred to by their first name or first and last name, but not just their surname. Further information can be found under Icelandic personal name .