Eva Rún Snorradóttir Awarded The May Star Poetry Prize for Her Poetry Book "Fræ sem frjóvga myrkrið"
The Writers' Union of Iceland and The National Library award the prize to a book of poetry published in 2018.
The prize was now awarded for the third time for a book of poetry.
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Eva Rún Snorradóttir
The May Star Poetry Prize this year is awarded to Eva Rún Snorradóttir for her book Fræ sem frjóvga myrkrið.
The jury's verdict is as follows:
“Fræ sem frjóvga myrkrið (Benedikt bókaútgáfa, 2018) is an original and diverse book of poetry in which the author Eva Rún Snorradóttir plays with various forms, from micro-plays to prose poetry. The first part of the book is a multi-voiced description of a girls' sun holiday to the Canaries that turns out to be both stark and funny. The second half of the book is more earnest and metaphorical, containing poems that describe friendship, pain, self-discovery, and a strange world, in a haunting way. Eva Rún uses different angles and forms that unify the poetic and the theatrical, thus managing to paint a strong and elaborate picture of the world that moves the reader.”
Eva Rún Snorradóttir was born in Reykjavik on the 9th of April 1982. She started writing poetry at an early age; at the age of eight she had a teacher who insisted everyone write poetry, and Eva Rún stapled together a book called Hamarinn that she presented to her parents and which was according to her “a terribly dramatic, tragic, illustrated single edition book of poetry.” Eva Rún spent her youth in Breiðholt and her former works, Heimsendir fylgir þér alla ævi (2013) and Tappi á himninum (2016), are i.a. about those years. Eva Rún Snorradóttir is an independent performance artist and writer. She is a part of the arts collectives Kviss Búmm Bang and 16lovers. She recently took over as one of two artistic directors of Lókal Theatre Festival. Eva Rún graduated with a BA-degree in Theatre and Performance Making from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2008.
All books of poetry published in 2018 that were presented to the National Library were eligible for the prize. The jury was comprised of Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson, appointed by the Writers' Union of Iceland, and Eva Kamilla Einarsdóttir, appointed by the National Library.
Nominated books:
Ásdís Ingólfsdóttir – Ódauðleg brjóst (Partus)
Eva Rún Snorradóttir – Fræ sem frjóvga myrkrið (Benedikt bókaútgáfa)
Gerður Kristný – Sálumessa (Mál og menning)
Haukur Ingvarsson – Vistarverur (Mál og menning)
Linda Vilhjálmsdóttir – Smáa letrið (Mál og menning)
Sigfús Bjartmarsson – Homo economicus I (MTH útgáfa)