“Translators build bridges”
21. febrúar 2026
Photos: Birna Imsland
The President presents the Icelandic Translation Award
The president presented the Icelandic Translation Prize at a formal ceremony at Gljúfrasteinn, museum devoted to novelist Halldór Laxness. The prize was awarded to Áslaug Agnarsdóttir for her translation of the short story collection A Sportsman’s Sketches by Ivan Turgenev, which was originally published in Russian in 1852. The translation is published by Ugla útgáfa.
In the jury’s review the work and the translation were praised: “The narrator in A Sportsman’s Sketches travels through the Russian countryside of the 19th century. He encounters a colorful and unforgettable cast of people: landowners, peasants, overseers, women and children. He describes the nature of his homeland with great artistry, and his interactions with people provide the material for the stories. Áslaug Agnarsdóttir’s translation is nothing short of outstanding. The stories are rendered in beautiful and nuanced Icelandic, where nature comes alive and the characters take on a clear and memorable shape in the mind of the reader. The style is supple and playful, making it a joy to read. This magnificent translation is significantly enriching the field of Icelandic literature.”
In her address at the ceremony at Gljúfrasteinn, the president spoke about the importance of translation for Icelandic society. She said: “Translators build bridges. They connect languages, cultures and eras. They enrich the Icelandic language, add to its nuances and ensure that we can engage in a living dialogue with the past and with other nations. One of the most important contributions literature makes to society, not least fiction, is to enable readers to put themselves in other people’s shoes. It allows us to see the world from more than one perspective. My experience of reading translated literature throughout my life is, at the same time, that human nature is strangely consistent from one time to another, from one place to another. Human hearts resemble one another in more places than just in Sudan and Grímsnes, to borrow words from Tómas Guðmundsson’s poetry.”
The Icelandic Translation Prize is awarded by the Association of Translators and Interpreters in cooperation with the Writers’ Union of Iceland and the Icelandic Publishers Association. The prize is awarded for the best translation of a literary work, with the aim of drawing attention to the important contribution of translators to Icelandic culture.
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