A life of Nonni
A new biography of the well known Icelandic children's author Jón Sveinsson, or Nonni, has been published. The book is simply named Jón Sveinsson – Nonni.
A new biography of the well known Icelandic children's author Jón Sveinsson, or Nonni, has been published in Icelandic, simply named Jón Sveinsson – Nonni. The book was recently nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize in the non-fiction and academic category. Historian Gunnar F. Guðmundsson is the book's author, a long time researcher of the life and works of Nonni. The book is published by Opna.
The book's publication is notable for being the first time that a life of Nonni is written in Icelandic, but biographies about him were published in Polish in 1939 and German in 1949. The book seeks to find answers to the many questions which remain about Nonni and his life, which was remarkable in many respects. He left his homeland at only 12 years of age when a French nobleman offered to pay for his education in France. At the end of his studies Nonni joined the Jesuit order, and later became a teacher at a Catholic school in Ordrup, Denmark, and worked there for twenty years. He began publishing his books after he gave up teaching in 1912 because of illness. He was a great success as a children's author worldwide and gave thousands of lectures around the globe.
"To be truthful I attempted to study this man more than is my habit to do of most of my friends – perhaps not at least for the reasons that I thought him almost too unbelievable to be real; and too real to be believable." – Halldór Laxness.
The life of Nonni, who once was one of Iceland's best known authors, is recounted in this authoritative book of 526 pages, which includes a great number of photographs. The diaries of Sveinn, Nonni's father, are examined for descriptions of the family's difficulties and struggles, which lead to Nonni being sent abroad to study at such a young age. Nonni's diaries are also inspected, but they show clearly the inner conflict that shook him regularly. Gunnar F. Guðmundsson investigates in his work what influence these radical changes had on Nonni's development and in what ways he himself, consciously or subconsciously, rearranged the picture of the life he wanted to see and show others. "But he also had a different sort of biography and another life," says Gunnar in the book, "which he wanted to keep to himself and only his nearest and dearest knew about. What was that life like?"