Kári Gíslason is an Icelandic-Australian writer and academic. He is a Professor in the School of Creative Arts at the

Queensland University of Technology The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public university, public research university located in the city of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. It has two major campuses, a modern city campus in Gardens Point, Brisbane, Gardens Point ...

. Much of Gíslason's writing focuses on Icelandic

sagas Sagas are prose stories and histories, composed in Iceland and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Scandinavia. The most famous saga-genre is the (sagas concerning Icelanders), which feature Viking voyages, migration to Iceland, and feuds between ...

and Iceland in general, but he has also published other travel and culture-focused writing.

Family and early life

Gíslason was born in 1972 in

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

to an English mother who had moved to Australia during her youth and an Icelandic father. His father had been in an affair with Gíslason's mother and also had a wife and children; one of Gíslason's half-brothers, Ólafur, later died in a car crash. As a result of the affair, Gíslason's existence was kept hidden from his father's family. Gíslason's biological parents split when he was a small child. As a child, Gíslason worked as a

newspaper hawker A newspaper hawker, newsboy or newsie is a street vendor of newspapers without a fixed newsstand. Related jobs included paperboy, delivering newspapers to subscribers, and news butcher, selling papers on trains. Adults who sold newspapers from fi ...

in Reykjavík before moving to England with his mother, and then to

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia several years later. He was a student at

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

's Nashville State High School, now known as Bracken Ridge State High School. After Gíslason left secondary school, he travelled to Iceland to meet with his biological father, and eventually made contact with his half-siblings.

Writing

Gíslason's first book-length work was ''The Promise of Iceland'' (

University of Queensland Press University of Queensland Press (UQP) is an Australian publishing house based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in 1948 as a traditional university press, UQP now publishes books for general readers across fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children's ...

, 2011), a memoir focusing on his childhood family situation. This was followed by ''The Ash Burner'' (UQP, 2012), a novel set in Australia. In 2017, Gíslason published ''Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the world'' (ABC Books/

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

) with co-author

Richard Fidler Richard Fidler is an Australian radio presenter and writer. He hosts an hour-long interview program, '' Conversations with Richard Fidler'' on ABC's Radio National, and was a member of the Australian comedy group the Doug Anthony All Stars. '' ...

. The book contains travel memoir material, Gíslason's recounting of his childhood and family situation, and retellings of Icelandic sagas. ''The Sorrow Stone'' (UQP, 2022) is a retelling of the story of a character in

Gísla saga ''Gísla saga Súrssonar'' (, ''The saga of Gísli the Outlaw'') is one of the sagas of Icelanders. It tells the story of Gísli, a tragic hero who must kill one of his brothers-in-law to avenge another brother-in-law. Gisli is forced to stay on th ...

, Disa (

Þórdís Súrsdóttir Þórdís or Thordis is an Icelandic name. Notable people with the name include: *Þórdís Árnadóttir (1933–2013), Icelandic swimmer *Thordis Brandt (born 1940), German-American actress *Thordis Elva, Icelandic author *Þórdís Gísladóttir ...

), who is forced to flee across Iceland with her son Sindri (

Snorri Goði Snorri Þorgrímsson (Old Norse: ; Modern Icelandic: ) or Snorri Goði (O.N.: ; M.I.: ; 963–1031) was a prominent chieftain in Western Iceland, who featured in a number of Icelandic sagas. The main source of his life is the ''Eyrbyggja saga' ...

) after a revenge stabbing. ''Running with Pirates'' (UQP, 2024) is a travel memoir set in

Corfu Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...

, Greece, telling the story of Gíslason and a friend named Paul travelling to Corfu, where they attempt to find work in the village of Karousades, and form a close alliance with a man known as The Pirate. Gíslason's short-form travel writing has been published in numerous Australian outlets, including the ''Escape'' section of ''

The Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, first published on 5 February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Tele ...

'', ''

The Courier-Mail ''The Courier-Mail'' is an Australian newspaper published in Brisbane. Owned by News Corp Australia, it is published daily from Monday to Saturday in tabloid format. Its editorial offices are located at Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner norther ...

'' and ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...

''.

Education and academic career

Gíslason obtained a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

in 2003, and has held teaching posts at the

University of Iceland The University of Iceland ( ) is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland, and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servants' school to a modern co ...

, the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

Bond University Bond University is Australia's first private university, private not-for-profit university and is located in Robina, Queensland, Robina on the Gold Coast, Queensland. Since its opening on 15 May 1989, Bond University has primarily been a teachi ...

, the University of Queensland and the

. He has also worked as a secondary school teacher in Iceland. He also holds a Bachelor of Laws, a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from the University of Queensland, and conducted saga research at the Árni Magnússon Institute during his Australia-based studies.

External links

Staff profile at QUT
*

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gislason, Kari Living people 1972 births Australian people of Icelandic descent Icelandic people of English descent Australian people of English descent 21st-century Australian male writers 21st-century Icelandic male writers Academic staff of Queensland University of Technology Academic staff of the University of Queensland Academic staff of Bond University Academic staff of the University of Iceland Academic staff of the University of Tübingen