Einar Bragi

Einar Bragi , with full name: Einar Bragi Sigurðsson (born April 7, 1921 in Eskifjörður in eastern Iceland , † March 26, 2005 in Reykjavík ) was an Icelandic poet , publisher and translator . Bragi is not a surname, but a middle name associated with poetry.

Life

Einar Bragi was the third of four children, his parents were the housewife Borghildur Einarsdóttir and the captain Sigurður Jóhannsson. Einar graduated from high school in Akureyri in 1945. In the same year he married Kristín Jónsdóttir and began studying literature , art history and theater studies in Sweden, first in 1945 and 1946 in Lund and then from 1953 to 1956 in Stockholm . There he published his first two volumes of poetry. He returned to Iceland in 1953. In a total of nine small volumes of poems from the years between 1950 and 1980, he kept returning to the same topics, which he often treated polemically at the beginning of his writing. He insisted that the so-called atomic poets of his time should write significantly differently than previous generations. Einar Bragi dealt with topics such as love, nature and was very critical of human weaknesses such as envy or social injustice and exploitation.

His poetry made use of alliteration and rhymes, but he also wrote in free form and prose. He was an important translator from many European languages ​​into Icelandic, including the North Sami and Greenland languages .

publisher

In 1953 Einar Bragi founded the magazine Birtingur , of which he was also the editor. From its publication until 1968, the magazine was the mouthpiece of modernism in Iceland. With the Swiss-German artist Dieter Roth , he founded the publishing house Forlag Editions in Iceland in the 1950s .

Publications

• 1950: Eitt kvöld í júni .
• 1952: Svanur á báru .
• 1953: Gestaboð um nótt .
• 1957: Ren í maí .
• 1960: Hreintjarnir .
• 1970: Í ljósmálinu .
• 1971–86: Eskja , about the history of Eskifjörður.
• 1983: Ljóð .
• 2000: Ljós í augum dagsins .

Translations

• 1948–49: Ditta mannsbarn by Martin Andersen Nexø.
• 1992: Leikrit III by August Strindberg.
• 1995: Leikrit III by Henrik Ibsen.

From the North Sami language into Icelandic:

• 2001: Bjartir frostdagar to Rauni Magga Lukkari .
• 2001: Móðir hafsins to Synnøve Persen .
• 2002: Kaldrifjaður félagi after Rose-Marie Huuva .
• 2002: Handan snœfjalla after Paulus Utsi .
• 2003: Viðernin í brjósti mér after Nils-Aslak Valkeapää .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Obituary in Morgunblaðið of April 4, 2005. Retrieved on August 20, 2019 (Icelandic). 
2. ↑ article in the magazine Glettingur. Retrieved August 20, 2019 (Icelandic). 

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 .