The Tower at the End of the World by Inger Smærup Sørensen

THE TOWER AT THE END OF THE WORLD Islands and literature

WELCOME In 2014 we at the Nordic House in the Faroe Islands invited the Icelandic author Sjón to our annual literary festival in November. While he was here, he became inspired to put together an event which would have the Faroese author William Heinesen as its inspiration, and would examine and celebrate authors from islands all around the world, creating a dialogue between them and international scholars on the subject of literature. This event should be hosted by the Nordic House; we should invite all of these wonderful people to our small islands in the middle of the North Atlantic,to the end of the world. Ambitious, yes – even a little crazy – but absolutely wonderful. I am extremely happy and proud to welcome you all to the Nordic House and to the Faroe Islands to this event which takes its title from one of Heinesen’s best loved books, Tower at the End of the World.

I want to give a special thank you to Sjón, who came up with the idea and brought us all on board, and to Bergur Rønne, who laid the foundation for the scholarly aspect of the event. I also want to give my sincere thanks to the Nordic Culture Fund for believing in and supporting the project, to the City of Tórshavn and to the Faroese Ministry of Culture for helping us to give you a warm welcome, and to Visit Faroe Islands for their interest in the event and kind support. And last but definitely not least my deepest gratitude to the authors and scholars who without a second thought said YES to the invitation. I hope your stay will be good and inspiring and will leave you with lasting impressions, friendships and hopefully wanting more of these North Atlantic islands.

Sif Gunnarsdóttir, director

Front page: William Heinesen. Nightmares, 1977 Norðurlandahúsið í Føroyum 2017 Design & print: Føroyaprent NORDIC ECOLABEL 541 705

INTRODUCTION Islands and remote geographical units call for great imaginations. They are open spaces with a magnificent view in every direction. Over the span of a few days, twelve authors born on islands from around the globe — in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic, and larger lands such as Indonesia and Japan — will meet for discussions and readings exploring the relationship between the island experience and literature. Joining them will be twelve academics who have been studying the same things in a scholarly way. At the same time that islands and their authors share much in their literature, there are also great differences between them dictated by location and political and cultural histories. It is our aim to bring some of these issues to the forefront during our stay in Tórshavn. Inspired by the Faroese writer William Heinesen (1900-91), the venue for this conference is Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands. In this sea-locked microcosmos of a town, Heinesen found a platform for a string of novels and short stories that have resonated with people from all around the globe. He is a great example of how even the tiniest of islands keep bringing forth authors of worldimportance. In one of his novels, The Lost Musicians, William Heinesen begins his tale with these words: “Far out in a radiant ocean glinting like quicksilver there lies a solitary little lead-coloured land. The tiny rocky shore is to the vast ocean just about the same as a grain of sand to the floor of a dance hall. But seen beneath a magnifying glass, this grain of sand is nevertheless a whole world with mountains and valleys, sounds and fjords and houses with small people. Indeed in one place there is even a complete little old town with quays and storehouses, streets and lanes and steep alleyways, gardens and squares and churchyards. There is also a little church situated high up, from whose tower there is a view over the roofs of the town and further out across the almighty ocean.”

The Tower at the End of the World is the title of Heinesen’s last novel from 1976 indicating the old Amaldus’ retirement from the world as he watches and longs for “the Land of Youth” from his “high prison at the edge of the great abyss”. With this conference we open the window in the tower by sending Heinesen into orbit once more. We hope to build a lasting transarchipelagic network including all who are interested in islands and literature. We have invited a strong team of writers and mostly literary scholars from across the globe to discuss one of the hottest issues of today which is that of islands. Together they will be covering places and perspectives from Tasmania to Greenland, from the Caribbean to Japan. In the wake of globalisation, islands and small places have hit a broad research agenda within all kinds of studies and become a huge theme in today’s literature as well, embodying a popular imagination of a world outside the megacities. The conference will engage in (trans)disciplinary topics connecting literature and geography. The current popularity in island culture presents a great opportunity to take a look at local, national, regional and global issues in today’s fluid modernity. In the new era of globalization, the world is experiencing an unprecedented criss-crossing of connections within and beyond the old imperial waterways and, likewise, beyond the networks of today’s nation-states. Transarchipelagic networks are becoming new ways of using the globe, where the old genius loci meets with the present genius globi. Twelve writers and twelve scholars will be addressing what the islander Heinesen refers to as different ‘grains of sand’ from different points of view.

Bergur Rønne Moberg & Sjón

PROGRAMME

THE TOWER AT THE END OF THE WORLD

PROGRAMME

THURSDAY 11/5 10.00

Welcome

Keynote: Margaret Cohen Paper: Pete Hay Paper: Gottskálk Jensson

The Nordic House in the Faroe Islands

Sif Gunnarsdóttir, director, The Nordic House in the Faroe Islands. Rigmor Dam, Minister of Education, Research and Culture. Annika Olsen, Mayor of Tórshavn. Sjón, author. Opening speech: Jamaica Kincaid, author.

11.00 - 13.00

Panel: Yoryis Yatromanolakis Laksmi Pamuntjak Jamaica Kincaid Margaret Cohen Pete Hay Gottskálk Jensson

Place – First round of discussions The Nordic House in the Faroe Islands

“The small post boats [...] break their way through the storm and sometimes completely disappear into canyons of foam, however, they appear again further out, riding high on the crests of the waves – a vision that is at once a common sight and full of pathos! In its graphic foreshortening this reminds you of the small Faroese people’s anonymous but poignant fate, oscillating between the scantily realistic and heroic great. The eider flock rising in dull patience on the green and foggy peaks and for long periods gone in fog and darkness, but still being there – as a reality resisting death – it symbolizes the same thing. Voici les isles de Féròe! as J.H.O. Djurhuus would have expressed it.”

Moderator: Bergur Rønne Moberg

20.00 - 21.30

Tjóðpallur Føroya – The National Theatre

Filinto Elisío Carl Jóhan Jensen Jamaica Kincaid Niviaq Korneliussen

– William Heinesen December 26, 1956 in a letter to Ebba Hentze. Transl. Bergur Rønne Moberg.

Keynote: Ottmar Ette Paper: Henk van der Liet Paper: Ástráður Eysteinsson Panel Ulla-Lena Lundberg Marcello Fois Donna Morrissey Ottmar Ette Henk van der Liet Ástráður Eysteinsson Moderator: Bergur Djurhuus Hansen

14.30 - 16. 30

Memory - Second round of discussions

Readings

Host: Helle Thede Johansen

FRIDAY 12/5 10.00 - 12.00

Language – Third round of discussions The Nordic House in the Faroe Islands

”I portray deliberately people and things as I feel that foreigners may perceive them. My telling is organized in this way. My linguistic situation has made it natural for me to write for ”foreigners”. It is a ”Nordic” audience I have in mind when I write. But here I see the task that has fallen to my lot. It is my destiny writing and speaking Danish in Faroese surroundings. Such is my grounds. Damn it, to fret over it. The main thing is that you do something and that you recognize and follow the rules set for the game you want to play.”

The Nordic House in the Faroe Islands − William Heinesen in a letter to Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen July 3, 1938

“Here from the tower where I, Amaldus the Rememberer (…) am sitting looking out so far, far away into the past and the forever gone Land of Youth, where I am no longer a citizen, and which I secretly envy you who are still playing about freely down there, especially your beautiful powers of regeneration! Down there, where the beginning began and the continuation steadily continues, day and night pass as usual, down there reality prevails, there life goes on, there great things are still experienced, things worth the experience, the epoch-making first things, those that make life eternally new. From this long heart-felt sigh you will understand that the tower that has been mentioned is no voluntary refuge but a prison, the miserable imprisoning tower at the edge of the world of age and corruption. Yes, here you sit forsaken in your high prison at the edge of the great abyss – sit listening to the threatening sounds from down below and try to look at the situation cheerfully, though God (who is still floating about as a cloud over the waters) knows that it is not always so easy and that you could not cope with it unless you cheated a little sometimes. Look now, I will now take out my faithful parachute and open the window and float away, slowly and full of expectations, down to the places which exist no more but are unforgettable, where my heart feels at home!”

Keynote: David Damrosch Paper: Paulette Ramsay Paper: Kirsten Thisted Panel Minae Mizumura Carl Jóhan Jensen Robert Alan Jamieson David Damrosch Paulette Ramsay Kirsten Thisted Moderator: Ástráður Eysteinsson

− William Heinesen Tårnet ved Verdens Ende (1976). (The Tower at the End of the World, Transl. Maja Jackson) 8

PROGRAMME

PROGRAMME SATURDAY 13/5

13.30 – 15.30

Power – Fourth round of discussions

16.00 - 17.30

Readings Tjóðpallur Føroya – The National Theatre

The Nordic House in the Faroe Islands

“You are so happy about this Tycho Brahe dream that you have to tell little Brother about it. But little Brother, who is now ten years old and also goes to school, is not the right person to tell your dream to. He looks at you from sideways and asks disturbing questions. − How high is the mountain that this tower is standing on? − It’s very high. − Yes, but how high in feet? − Eighty thousand or perhaps nearer ninety or perhaps a hundred thousand. − But how do you get up there then? − You don’t have to. You just are there. − Always? − Always. − But how do you get food and things like that up there? − By balloon. − Well, but if the balloon bursts or catches fire, or if a gale carries if off? − There are no gales there. − Yes, but who pays for it all? It must cost a lot of money? Have you thought of that, Amaldus? − And little Brother shakes his head in despair and does not bother to ask any more questions.”

Minae Mizumura Sjón Marcello Fois Donna Morrisey Host: Rakel Helmsdal

− William Heinesen Tårnet ved Verdens Ende (1976). (The Tower at the End of the World, Transl. Maja Jackson)

Keynote: Bergur Rønne Moberg Paper: Delia Ungureanu Paper: Malan Marnersdóttir Panel Niviaq Korneliussen Sjón Filinto Elisío Bergur Rønne Moberg Delia Ungureanu Malan Marnersdóttir Moderator: Bergur Djurhuus Hansen

20.00 - 21.30

Readings Tjóðpallur Føroya – The National Theatre

Ulla-Lena Lundberg Laksmi Pamuntjak Yoryis Yatromanolakis Robert Alan Jamieson Host: Vónbjørt Vang

AUTHORS

THE TOWER AT THE END OF THE WORLD

FILINTO ELISÍO

CARL JÓHAN JENSEN

Filinto Elísio (Capeverdean Writer, born in Praia, 1961) is living in Lisbon, Portugal. A librarian and administrator, he also works as a publisher of Rosa de Porcelana Editora. He is co-founder of the Cape Verdean Academy of Letters, as well founder of the Amilcar Cabral / Martin Luther King Jr. Annual Conference (UMASS Boston). He is the author of the following books: ”Do Lado de Cá da Rosa”, ”Prato do Dia”, ”O Inferno do Riso”, ”Das Hesperides”, ”Das Frutas Serenadas”, ”Li Cores & Ad Vinhos”, ”Outros Sais na Beira-mar”, ”Me_xendo no baú. Vasculhando o U” and ”Zen Limites”.

Carl Jóhan Jensen is a Faroese writer, poet and translator, who occasionally has dabbled in journalism over the years. In the forty years since his debut in 1977, he has published eight volumes of poetry, four novels and a number of translations into Faroese mainly from Icelandic and English. In 2016 Jensen was a nominee to the Nordic councils literature price for the novel ”Eg síggi teg betri í myrkri” (I see thee better in the dark, Sprotin 2014). Jensen currently lives in Brussels.

MARCELLO FOIS

JAMAICA KINCAID

Marcello Fois (1960) is an Italian writer. He was born in Nuoro in Sardinia and studied at the University of Bologna. His first novel Ferro Recente was published in 1989. A prolific author, he has also written scripts for radio, TV, film and theatre. He has won numerous prizes, including: Premio Italo Calvino for Picta, Premio Dessì for Nulla, Premio Scerbanenco for Sempre caro, Premio Fedeli for Dura madre, Premio Lama e trama, Premio Super Grinzane Cavour for Memoria del vuoto, Premio Volponi for Memoria del vuoto, Premio Alassio Centolibri - Un Autore per l’Europa for Memoria del vuoto. Fois is considered to be a leading proponent of the ”New Sardinian Literature” movement.

Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John’s, Antigua. Her books include At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, The Autobiography of My Mother, and My Brother, among others. She was a New Yorker staff writer from 1976 until 1995 and has been publishing fiction and nonfiction since the mid-1970s. In 2000 Kincaid received the Prix Femina Étranger for My Brother, and in fall 2009 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

ROBERT ALAN JAMIESON

NIVIAQ KORNELIUSSEN

Robert Alan Jamieson was born and raised in Shetland, which features largely in both his fiction and poetry. He is the author of four novels and two collections of poetry and will publish a new novel, ’macCLOUD FALLS’, and a further book of poetry, ’A Hundir Inboos till a Diein Lied’ (A Hundred Welcomes to a Dying Language), in 2017. The latter features a sequence of translations into Shetlandic from the marginal languages of Europe, a hundred in number. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, he held the William Soutar Fellowship 1993-96, was co-editor of Edinburgh Review 1993-98, Writer-in-Residence at the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde 1998-2001, and since then has taught in the English department of the University of Edinburgh.

Niviaq Korneliussen was born in 1990 and grew up in the South Greenlandic town of Nanortalik. She has studied social science at the University of Nuuk and psychology at Aarhus University. Her writing career began in 2012 when she entered a short story contest for young Greenlanders. Korneliussen’s winning short story, San Francisco, was by far one of the best and most stylistically consistent of the ten short stories selected and published in the anthology Ung i Grønland – ung i Verden. Her novel HOMO Sapienne was published in November 2014. The novel has aroused great interest among readers, and it has received tremendous reviews and an amazing reception from the press as well as several nominations for prestigious prizes.

AUTHORS

THE TOWER AT THE END OF THE WORLD

ULLA-LENA LUNDBERG

LAKSMI PAMUNTJAK Laksmi Pamuntjak is a bilingual Indonesian novelist, poet, journalist, and food writer. Amba/The Question of Red, her bestselling first novel, won Germany’s Literaturpreis 2016 and was named #1 on Germany’s Weltempfaenger list of the best works of fiction from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Arab World. The novel was shortlisted for the 2013 Khatulistiwa Literary Award and has been translated into several languages. Aruna and Her Palate is Pamuntjak’s second novel. It was a bestseller in Indonesia and shortlisted for the 2015 Khatulistiwa Literary Award. Her first poetry collection, Ellipsis, appeared in the recommended books section of the 2005 Herald UK Books of the Year pages. Her latest publication, There Are Tears in Things: Collected Poems and Prose (2001-2016), was published in 2016. Pamuntjak is also the author of five editions of The Jakarta Good Food Guide. She writes opinion articles for The Guardian and divides her time between Berlin and Jakarta.

Ulla-Lena Lundberg was born in 1947 on the remote island of Kökar in the autonomous Åland Islands. She is an ethnologist and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Åbo Akademi in Finland. She has lived abroad and in Finland for long periods of time, which is reflected in her work. Today she lives in Mariehamn, the only town in Åland. She is a prolific author of fiction and fact, best known perhaps as a novelist. Her Seafarer Trilogy on shipping in the Åland Islands has been widely acclaimed, as has her latest novel Ice, set in a stark and remote island which recalls her native Kökar. It received the 2012 Finlandia Prize and was translated into English in 2016.

MINAE MIZUMURA SJÓN

Born in Tokyo, Minae Mizumura moved to New York at age twelve and studied French literature at Yale College and Graduate School. Acclaimed for her audacious experimentation and skillful storytelling, all four of her novels and her book of criticism have garnered major literary awards. Titles available in English are A True Novel, The Fall of Language in the Age of English and Inheritance from Mother. Regarding her most popular novel, a tour de force inspired by Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, The New York Times Book Review noted: “Mizumura has triumphed in taking a quintessential Western Gothic and making it wholly Japanese.” She now lives in Tokyo.

DONNA MORRISSEY Donna Morrissey was born and raised in the outports of Newfoundland. She has written six nationally bestselling novels and has received awards in Canada, the U.S., and England. Her novel Sylvanus Now was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and she was nominated for a Gemini for best writing for the film Clothesline Patch. Her fiction has been translated into several different languages. Donna is currently writing a new novel and living in Halifax, NS

Born in Reykjavik in 1962, Sjón is a celebrated Icelandic novelist. He won the Nordic Council’s Literary Prize for his novel ‘The Blue Fox’ (the nordic countries’ equivalent of the Man Booker Prize), and the novel ‘From The Mouth Of The Whale’ was shortlisted for both the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. His trilogy ‘CoDex 1962’ was published in its final form in the autumn 2016 to great acclaim. Also a poet, librettist and lyricist, he has published nine poetry collections and written four opera librettos and lyrics for various artists. In 2001 he was nominated for an Oscar for his lyrics in the film Dancer In The Dark. Sjón’s novels have been published in thirty five languages.

YORYIS YATRAMANOLAKIS Born in a village of Crete. Ph.D. in classics, King’s College, London. Emeritus Professor of Ancient Greek Literature (Athens). Books and articles on Ancient and Modern Greek Literature. Translations of Ancient Greek and Latin texts into modern Greek. Nine novels, a number of short stories and three poetic collections. Literary and political essays in “Vima”, distinguished Greek newspaper. Some of his novels and his short stories have been translated into English, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Korean and Estonian. “Nikos Kazantzakis” prize, 1st national prize for literature. Prize of the Academy of Athens. 17

SCHOLARS

THE TOWER AT THE END OF THE WORLD

ÁSTRÁÐUR EYSTEINSSON

OTTMAR ETTE

Ástráður Eysteinsson is Professor of Comparative Literature and former Dean of Humanities at the University of Iceland, and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. He has worked mainly in the areas of literary and cultural theory, modernist studies and translation studies, and is a practicing translator. His publications include co-translations of most of Franz Kafka’s narrative works into Icelandic, various articles in the general areas of literary, cultural and translation studies – including place studies and island studies – and three books: The Concept of Modernism, Tvímæli (on translation and translation studies), and Umbrot (on literature and modernity). He has edited several books, including The Cultural Reconstruction of Places, and is the co-editor (with Daniel Weissbort) of Translation – Theory and Practice: A Historical Reader, and (with Vivian Liska) of Modernism (2 vols., International Comparative Literature Association).

MARGARET COHEN Margaret Cohen is the Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature and Civilization at Stanford University. She received her B.A. and Ph.D. from Yale. Throughout her career, Professor Cohen has explored the literature and culture of modernity. In The Novel and the Sea she revealed the impact of the ship’s log and the history of writing about work at sea on the development of the modern novel. The book was awarded the Louis R.Gottschalk Prize and the George and Barbara Perkins Prize. Other books include The Sentimental Education of the Novel, Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution, as well as co-edited collections and a Norton critical edition of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2017-2018, when she will complete a book showing how the modern imagination of the underwater environment has been shaped by science and technology enabling people to view a hitherto inaccessible realm, as well as to exhibit its conditions on land.

DAVID DAMROSCH David Damrosch is Ernest Bernbaum Professor and Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. A past president of the American Comparative Literature Association, he is the founder and director of Harvard’s Institute for World Literature. His books include What Is World Literature? (2003), The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (2007), and How to Read World Literature (2009, 2017). He is the general editor of the sixvolume Longman Anthology of World Literature (2004, 2009), co-editor of The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature (2009) and editor of World Literature in Theory (2014). 20

Born in Schwarzwald in 1956, Ottmar Ette has been Chair of Romance Literature at the University of Potsdam since 1995. He wrote his dissertation on José Martí at the University of Freiburg and his Habilitation on Roland Barthes at the Catholic University of Eichstätt. Ottmar Ette taught at Eichstätt from 1987 to 1995. He has been a visiting professor in various countries of Latin America and in the USA. Ette is elected Honorary member of the Modern Language Association of America, member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and member of the “Leibniz-Sozietät der Wissenschaften zu Berlin”. He is also a member of the Academia Europaea, Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Modern Languages Research at University of London School of Advanced Studies and a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Institute for Advanced Study. Further fellowships brought him to the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies and the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.

PAULETTE A. RAMSAY Paulette A. Ramsay is Head of the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures and Professor of Spanish in the Faculty of Humanities and Education, at The University of the West Indies, Jamaica. She is an interdisciplinary academic, an established writer and researcher whose interests include Language Pedagogy, Writing Theories and Afro-Hispanic literature and culture. She has published many scholarly articles, mainly in the area of Afro-Hispanic literature and culture. Her research draws on broad post- colonial /post- modernist theories, gender studies, feminist studies and cultural studies, especially as they relate to issues of identity, ethnicity and nationhood. She is regarded as one of the leading scholars in the area of Afro-Mexican literary and cultural production. She has been the recipient of several awards including OAS, AECI Fellowships, UWI 60 under 60 Award for outstanding research, and the UWI Principal’s Award for research.

PETE HAY Pete Hay holds an adjunct position at the University of Tasmania, where he was previously Reader in Geography and Environmental Studies. His magnum opus, Main Currents In Western Environ mental Thought, was published on four continents (though differently titled by Edinburgh University Press in Europe). He has worked as a political advisor at state and national levels, though these days he far prefers poetry to politics. He has authored five poetry books - one a poet/painter collaboration - edited another, and worked with a photographer to co-produce a book entitled The Forests. Of his latest collection, Physick (published in Nottingham by Shoestring Press), Rachel Edwards has written, ‘Physick is a book of poetry that sears and coaxes. No one else takes the temperature of Tasmania quite like Hay’. 21

SCHOLARS

THE TOWER AT THE END OF THE WORLD

HENK VAN DER LIET

BERGUR RØNNE MOBERG

Henk A. van der Liet (1956) is Chair of the Scandinavian Program at the University of Amsterdam. His research primarily focuses on modern and contemporary Scandinavian literature, with a special emphasis on Danish literature as well as on literature mobility and vagrancy. He has contributed to the standard reference work Danske digtere i det 20. århundrede I-III (2000-2002), is one of the editors-in-chief of European Journal of Scandinavian Studies (EJSS), published by De Gruyter Publishers and he works as a literary critic for Litteraturmagasinet Standart. At present, he writes a biographical study about the 19th century Danish author-artist Holger Drachmann.

Bergur Rønne Moberg (b. 1965), holds a Ph.D. in William Heinesen’s writing and is currently working on his second Postdoc. at the Dpt. of Nordic Studies, University of Copenhagen. Moberg published six books and a long range of articles on Faroese, Danish-Faroese, Scandinavian and European literature within World Literature, Archival Studies etc. In several books and articles, different parts of (Danish-) Faroese literature have been examined as a rest in the West (see academia.edu). Together with professor David Damrosch, Harvard University, Moberg will present the new concept of ‘Ultraminor Literatures’ in Journal of World Literature in September, 2017. He also participates in the collaborate project ‘Denmark and the New North Atlantic’ led by associate professor Kirsten Thisted, University of Copenhagen.

GOTTSKÁLK JENSSON Gottskálk Jensson was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, where he also grew up in a mixed Icelandic-Danish family. From 1983 to 1996 he studied comparative literature and classics at the University of Iceland, and classics at the University of Toronto. Since 1997 he has taught classical literature and languages, and Icelandic literature and language, at both these universities, besides the University of Copenhagen where he is now employed at The Arnamagnæan Institute of Manuscript Studies. He has published books and articles on bilingual literary cultures, from the Greek roots of the Roman novel Satyrica by Petronius to the use of Latin in medieval and early-modern Iceland. As a scholar he likes to question traditional accounts of cultural hegemony and investigate the perviousness of linguistic barriers.

MALAN MARNERSDÓTTIR Professor, Dr. Malan Marnersdóttir, teaches literary history, various literary courses in Faroese and Scandinavian literature, women’s studies and post-colonial studies in Faroese literature at Fróðskaparsetur Føroya, the University of the Faroe Islands. Author of Faroese Literary History, 2011 with Turið Sigurðardóttir. Some recent publications are: “Towards a Monolingual Canon in the Faroe Islands” in Battles and Borders. Perspectives on Cultural Transfer and Literature in Minor Language Areas; “Translations of William Heinesen - a Post-colonial Experience” in The postcolonial North Atlantic. Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands;“La littérature et la religion vues à travers la réception de l’œuvre de l’auteur féroïen William Heinesen.” in Deshima ;Revue d’histoire globale des pays du nord. No 7: Protestantisme en Europe du Nord aux XXe et XXIe siècles. 22

KIRSTEN THISTED Kirsten Thisted is an Associate Professor at Copenhagen University, Institute of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, Minority Studies Section. Her research areas include minoritymajority relations, cultural and linguistic encounters, cultural translation and post-colonial relations. She has published several books and a large number of articles about Greenlandic oral traditions, modern Greenlandic literature and film, Arctic explorers and Scandinavia seen in a post-colonial perspective.

DELIA UNGUREANU Dr. Delia Ungureanu is Assistant Director of Harvard’s Institute for World Literature and assistant professor of literary theory in the Department of Literary Studies at the University of Bucharest. She is the author of From Paris to Tlön: Surrealism as World Literature (forthcoming from Bloomsbury), and of Poetica Apocalipsei: Razboiul cultural in revistele literare romanesti (1944– 1947) (The Poetics of Apocalypse: The cultural war in Romanian literary magazines, 1944-1947, Bucharest UP, 2012). She has published essays on canon formation, modern poetry and poetics, Shakespeare, and Nabokov, and is coediting Romanian Literature for the World: Circulation and Exchange on the International Market, a special issue of the Journal of World Literature. 23