By Tine Maria Winther, Politiken book editor, Reykjavik

In the three storey bookshop on Laugavegur, the main street of Reykjavik "Fathers big secret" is ready for Christmas season.
The children's book about siblings whose father is a cannibal is number eight on the bestseller list, and author Thorarinn Leifsson is quite happy, he says as he fetches me from the entrance of the book store in his green Nissan Micra.
The interview was almost cancelled, first the author had Swine flu, then he got a blod clot in his leg.
"How is the leg? I enquire as i take a seat in the Micra.
"How do you know about that?", he replies.
"I have been in iceland since last night …".
"I see", he replies. "News travel fast up here."

Thórarinn 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.

• Interview in english
• Interview in danish PDF
• Danish web version

(Text loosely based on Fabulous Iceland news)

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.