Illustration

  THORARINN LEIFSSON : WRITER AND ILLUSTRATOR

Interview in denmarks most important newspaper

PolitikenThórarinn Leifsson gained impressive coverage in the Danish newspaper Politiken in the middle of december 2009 on account of his children's book Leyndarmálið hans pabba (Father's Big Secret): not only was there a two-page interview in the paper's literary supplement, but Leifsson's drawings also graced the front pages of both the main paper and the literary supplement. The Icelandic newspaper Fréttablaðið reported Leifsson's reaction: “I think I'm in shock, I didn't realise it would be as big as this [...]. I would be satisfied with this kind of coverage once every ten years.” His latest book Bókasafn Ömmu Huldar (Grandmother's Library) will be published in Denmark in the autumn.

Here is aPDF with the interview in danish and here is the Web version.

(Text loosely based on Fabulous Iceland news)


Books

Grandmother’s Library (October 2009)

Albertina lives in a peculiar world. There are no books and the special educational machines in school only teach about loan interests rates.
The Internet has been prohibited for years and the Gold Bank has gained control of most of the world. Finally grownups start to disappear one by one.
That's when Grandmother Huld turns up with an enormous library of books and dangerous knowledge. From now on nothing stays the same.


Great success with critics in Denmark

Success!Success!Hallucinant firecracker, pure icelandic madness, amusing read, well done, incredibly funny …

These are but a few examples from the numerous good reviews since Fathers Big Secret was released in Denmark on 28th may this spring.

Politiken, Denmark's by far most important cultural newspaper brought a review by Steffen Larsen, a well known critic.


Good review in a German newspaper

The german newspaper Sozialistische Tageszeitung reviewed Fathers Big Secret
in a special Frankfurt Book Fair supplement. The book will be on sale in Germany next week.


Farvel, farvel

Farvel og tak mine danske venner. Det islandske finansmirakel er slut. Vi lukker og slukker.
Goodbye my Danish friends. The Icelandic financial miracle is over. We are closed.


The Emperor's New Clothes

This picture is the most visited item on this site these days.
I wonder why.


Icelandic financial crisis


Is the Cannibal going to swallow Europe?

Now when the book launch at Leipziger Kinderbuchverlag in Germany is only a few days away and orders from German speaking web-shops have started to come in, the terrible news of yet another
publisher falling prey to the cannibal come to us. Forlaget Torgard has bought the rights to Father's Big Secret to be published in Denmark next year.


Sold to Germany, selling to …

Leipziger Kinderbuchverlag has bought the rights to Fathers big secret for the German speaking countries. The book has already been translated by Doctor Hartmut Mittelstädt in Greifswald and will be in the bookstores in September.


Street painter

In october last year - after the Frankfurt Book Fair - I visited Strassborug for the first time since I was a Street painter and art student, back in the eighties.

In 1985-1986 I traveled to all the big cities in western Europe. Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Strassbourg, Berlin, Vienna, Rome. Sometimes I was broke, sleeping in construction buildings or in vacant train cars. Other times I was rich and slept in hotels and didn´t work for weeks.