Bryndís Björgvinsdóttir

Author Bryndís Björgvinsdóttir

Bryndís Björgvinsdóttir (born March 24, 1982) is an Icelandic author and folklorist. She started her writing career at fifteen when she co-authored the book Orðabelgur Ormars ofurmennis (The Wordballoon of Worm Wonderman). In 2011 she returned to writing with the children's book Flugan sem stöðvaði stríðið (The Fly Who Ended the War) which won the Icelandic Children's Book Prize (2011). Three years later she published the young adult book Hafnfirðingabrandarinn (The Local Joke) which won both the Icelandic Literary Prize (2014) and the Icelandic Women's Literature Prize (or Fjöruverðlaunin 2014).

Bryndís is an adjunct professor at Iceland Academy of the Arts.^[1]

Work for Syrian refugees

Bryndís gained extensive media attention both in Iceland and abroad when, on 30 August 2015, she started a Facebook event called 'Kæra Eygló Harðar – Sýrland kallar' ('Dear Eygló Harðar – Syria is Calling'), to seek signatories for an open letter to Eygló Harðardóttir, the Minister of Social Affairs and Housing. Iceland had in July agreed to accept 50 Syrian refugees,^[2] but Bryndís offered to pay for the travel to Iceland of five more, and to find accommodation for them, thus inviting Eygló to increase Iceland's intake to 55. Within a few days, the letter had around 12,000 signatories, many also offering to pay for travel and accommodation for refugees.^[3] (Though some people explicitly refused.^[4]) Bryndís's letter said:

Refugees are human resources, they have experience and skills. Refugees are our future spouses, best friends, or soulmates, the drummer for the band of our children, our next colleague, Miss Iceland in 2022, the carpenter who finally finished the bathroom, the cook in the cafeteria, the fireman, the computer genius, or the television host.^[5]

This was part of a wider wave of efforts to convince the government to accept more refugees; on August 31 the government was reportedly considering an increase in the level.^[6]

References