MARCEL KRÜGER

An island and its books

Marcel Krueger is an author and translator living in Ireland. Influenced by authors such as W.G. Sebald, Dubravka Ugrešić, and Martin Pollack, he writes in English and German about memory, identity, and travel in Europe, drawing on his family history and his own existence as a migrant. His articles and essays have been published in The Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Irish Times, Slow Travel Berlin, and CNN Travel, among others, and Marcel works as a book editor for the Berlin-based magazine Elsewhere - A Journal of Place. His German-language publications include "From East Prussia to the Gulag. A Journey in the Footsteps of My Grandmother" (Reclam, 2019) and "Iceland - An Island and Its Books" (Reclam, 2021). He was chosen by the jury of the German Cultural Forum Eastern Europe as the Town Writer of Allenstein/Olsztyn in 2019, and is currently working on a book about the story of his great-uncle Franz Nerowski, who was active as a spy for the Second Polish Republic against the Nazis until he was exposed and executed in 1942.

"This is a book about books, to honor a place where the written word is valued like nowhere else."

What does Iceland stand for - harsh climate, wild nature, elves and trolls? Right, but beyond that, Iceland is world famous as an island of literature enthusiasts and book lovers! When the sun hardly shows itself in the long winters, the inhabitants retreat into their houses - and read: medieval sagas, poetry or contemporary crime novels. No wonder Iceland has the world's highest percentage of writers in the population, and more books are published per capita than in most other countries in the world.

Marcel Krueger wanders through the history and literature of this fascinating country and takes us to the central places. From the Arctic Ocean to ghost fjords to volcanic craters and the wet grave of the gods. Because behind every glacier or waterfall there is a good story in Iceland.