Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir (b. 1976) was born in Reykjavik and spent her childhood partly in the city, partly in various villages around the country. In her youth, she was a cow-herd, sheep-minder and bartender. After publishing her first book in 1998 (When His Eyes are on You, You’re the Virgin Mary), she became a full-time writer. Since 2010, she has taught creative writing at the Iceland Academy of the Arts.
Her work has been translated into several languages and has won various awards, including The National Prize for Literature in 2011 for Everything With a Kiss Awakens, The Icelandic Literature Prize for Women for Love, Texas in 2018 and the National Radio Lifetime Award for Literature in 2019. In 2021 she was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize for the novel Aðferðir til að lifa af (Methods for Survival). For her most recent novel, Í skugga trjánna (In the Shadow of the Trees), she received the Icelandic Booksellers’ Literary Prize.
Photo: Elene Torre
