Hallgrimur Helgason – författare

Hlynur Björn is an unemployed 30-something loner, still living with his mum, who spends his days on the Internet, watching satellite TV, and gazing at girls in the pub. But Hlynur's cosy, unthreatening world is shaken when his mother comes out as a lesbian, and her Spanish girlfriend Lolla moves into their home. 101 Reykjavik is a first-person account of a blackly funny and bizarre love triangle, a dark, comic tale of perverse sexuality and slacker culture in Iceland's trendy capital city that pokes fun along the way at such foibles of our culture as CNN weather reports and porn videos.

With some 66 hits under his belt, Tomislav Bokšić, or Toxic, has a flawless record as hitman for the Croatian mafia in New York. That is, until he kills the wrong guy and is forced to flee the States, leaving behind the life he knows and loves. Suddenly, he finds himself on a plane hurtling toward Reykjavik, Iceland, borrowing the identity of an American televangelist named Father Friendly. With no means of escape from this island devoid of gun shops and contract killing, tragicomic hilarity ensues as he is forced to come to terms with his bloody past and reevaluate his future.

'Incredibly funny, incredibly insightful and incredibly moving' Fiona Mozley, author of Hot StewA darkly comic and explosive tale of a world at war and one island girl's struggle to surviveEighty-year old Herra Björnsson lies alone in her garage waiting to die. Oh, she has two weeks left, maybe three - she has booked her cremation appointment, at a blistering 1,000 degrees, so it won't be long. But until then she has her cigarettes, her laptop, a World War II grenade, and her memories to sustain her. One of the most original narrators in literary history, Herra takes readers with her on a dazzling ride of a novel as she reflects - in a voice by turns darkly funny, poignant and always, always smart - on the mishaps, tragedies and turns of luck that shaped her life. And with a bawdy, uncompromising spirit, she has survived it all. As hilarious as it is heartbreaking, Hallgrímur Helgason tells the deeply moving story of a woman swept up by the forces of history.