Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m born and raised in Iceland in turbulent times. During the Second World War, the world realized the strategic location of my tiny island country, situated smack in the middle of the North Atlantic. Allied forces invaded Iceland and turned it into a fortress to prevent Hitler from advancing into North America. Since Iceland entered the world stage, it has grown from a dirt-poor nation to a prosperous one. The country’s success became every Icelander’s success. Spurred by this favorable wind, I set off to conquer the world like my Viking forefathers.
I left home at 19 to study architecture in Finland. Afterwards I pursued an international career that took me to the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the U.S. My assignments ranged from construction of the palace and harem of the ruler of Abu Dhabi to building schools in developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. I’ve worked for several aid agencies, including UNESCO and the World Bank. I now live in the Washington, DC area with my wife and coauthor, Veronica Li.
Let me introduce her. Veronica emigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong as a teenager. She received her B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s degree in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University. She has worked as a journalist and for the World Bank, and is currently a writer. Her three previously published titles are: Nightfall in Mogadishu, Journey across the Four Seas: A Chinese Woman’s Search for Home, and Confucius Says: A Novel.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The name of my book is Viking Voyager: An Icelandic Memoir.
I love telling friends about my adventures in Iceland and around the world. They keep saying I should write them down, so I did, in bits and pieces. I dumped them into a folder called “Episodes” in my hard drive, like dumping photos in a shoe box. One day, I showed a snippet of my travels in the Middle East to my wife, a published author. I’m sure she read it just to humor me, but her reaction surprised me. “Sverrir, you’ve had a really interesting life!” she said.
From then on, my project became hers too. She came up with a theme for my memoir: the making of a modern Viking and his adventures. This became the backbone to hang my episodes on. They became the building blocks of a coherent and exciting story.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I have to say the setting of my writing environment is unusual. I’m most productive in my weekend home, which I designed and built with my own hands on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Veronica and I work at his and hers desks in our bedroom loft. The space is surrounded with glass that allows me to look out at the expanse of sea and sky. Tapping on my computer, I can see from the corner of my eye an eagle swooshing past the balcony or a flock of bufflehead ducks paddling in the water. When I get stuck, I just stare at the wonderful landscape and feel happy that I’ve had a blessed eighty-one years in this world.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Halldór Laxness, the Icelandic Nobel Laureate for literature, is my favorite author. His writing is concise, sharp witted, sometimes outright funny, and his characters are so vivid they remind me of people I know. Much of it is a searing social critique of current or historical norms in Iceland. His books have been translated into many languages, but nothing beats reading it in Icelandic. If a book can sing, his does, which by the way is the title of one of his novels, The Fish Can Sing.
Tales of a Barber Surgeon by Finnish author Zacharias Topelius had a great influence on me. As a ten-year-old, I devoured the five volumes of the Icelandic translation. They were filled with action and blood and gore—just right for a boy’s literary taste. They were part of the tiny library at the farm I worked in during the summer. I read each volume dozens of times, since there were few other choices. Finland, with its magnificent architecture, poetry, and music, became a fascination for me. I ended up studying architecture in Finland and launching my career there.
I didn’t become fluent in English until well into my twenties. I was well-versed in several Scandinavian languages—Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, and Finnish—and my German was passable. But I’d always viewed English as a scrappy, undisciplined language that jumbled bits and pieces from the Romance and Germanic schools, with neither the ardor of one nor the structure of the other. I didn’t take English seriously until my last years in Finland, when I realized English was the lingua franca of the twentieth century. To prepare for my travels around the world, I gave myself a crash course by consuming every Agatha Christie mystery. It worked.
What are you working on now?
Given the times we live in, I’m contemplating a series of novels about epic battles to deal with epidemics in various parts of the world. It can take place in any of the sixty countries I’ve traveled to. The heroine, a feisty Jane Bond type, is an operative in a United Nations agency such as the World Health Organization or World Bank. She gets things done, often at the cost of stepping on her superiors’ toes. Such a character has already been created in Veronica’s first novel, Nightfall in Mogadishu, a thriller depicting the fall of Somalia, where she once worked. We’ll have plenty of material to draw on from our international careers. Veronica doesn’t know it yet, but I expect her to be my collaborator again.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Giving talks at libraries, book clubs and other community groups is now out of the question. So for now, we rely on the virtual world.
Veronica and I are now working hard on getting reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and other sites.
So far, we’ve had success marketing our book to groups with ties to Iceland. The Icelandic National League of the U.S. interviewed us right after the book was released. The webinar is posted at https://inlus.org/community/webinars. A major paper in Canada catered to the Icelandic diaspora in North America has agreed to post an article about Viking Voyager.
We’re going on a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish. The tour will run from Nov. 23 to Dec. 18, with stops at 30 blogspots. Everyone is welcome to join the tour at https://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2020/10/fs-vbt-viking-voyager-by-sverrir.html
Do you have any advice for new authors?
My advice is to start writing. You never know what emerges. Seeing your thoughts in writing can stimulate the brain to connect the dots, to recognize patterns, and a storyline may appear.
These are the lessons I learned from writing my memoir. Perhaps others can learn from them too. The story was originally put on paper by a technical writer —Sverrir— and subsequently shaped by a creative writer —Veronica. She always insisted on painting vivid pictures of places and people in order to transport readers to a different world. When I said I couldn’t remember the specifics, she threatened to exercise a coauthor’s right to creative license. Of course I couldn’t let her turn my life into fiction. So I dug into my memory, did some research, and found the details to flesh out the scenes. From its birth as a factual and dry account, the story evolved into a visual canvas for the reader.
Another key lesson I learned is the importance of the theme. Once the theme is established, the episodes fall into place. A gripping focus helps to keep up the tension in a story, like a train hurtling toward a destination, and makes it a page-turner.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I begin my memoir with my grandfather’s tragic accident. A writer friend who read an early draft pointed out that the chapter was all about my grandfather, with hardly any trace of me. As this is my memoir, she felt I should make a strong entrance from the beginning. I saw her point, but I felt inhibited because the event I was describing took place well before I was born. I was also worried about upstaging my grandfather. But as I learned more about creative writing, I realized the magic of a blank page—anything is possible. A WRITER HAS THE CREATIVE LICENSE TO MAKE ANYTHING WORK. With Veronica’s help, I crossed the boundary of time and came out of the shadows to share the limelight with my grandfather. My friend’s critique has made me realize the infinite possibilities of creative writing.
What are you reading now?
The Lion’s Game by Nelson DeMille, an action thriller
What’s next for you as a writer?
I’m translating my memoir into Icelandic. I was rather rusty in the beginning, having left Iceland sixty years ago. But as I work on it, my native language is beginning to feel like an old friend. I have an editor in Iceland to help me polish up the manuscript. She’s also my agent and is in the middle of finalizing arrangements with Icelandic TV and radio to interview me.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I would take with me books that last a long time:
Independent People by Halldor Laxness
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Art: A New History by Paul Johnson
Author Websites and Profiles
Sverrir Sigurdsson Website
Sverrir Sigurdsson Amazon Profile
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