Hallgrímur Helgason was born in 1959, in Reykjavik, Iceland.
He started out as a painter and has held over 30 exhibitions in various countries. He spent the late eighties in New York and the first half of the nineties in Paris.
In 1990 he published his first novel and has since written six more novels in his native language, Icelandic, several of which have been published abroad. His best known book is 101 Reykjavik, which has appeared in 13 languages and was published in English by Faber & Faber in 2002. A movie based on the novel was released in 2000 to much international acclaim. Hallgrímur's novel The Author of Iceland received the Icelandic Prize for Literature in 2001 and in 1999 the novel101 Reykjavik was nominated for the Nordic Prize for Literature. Stormland was nominated for the same prize in 2007.
Beside his novels, Hallgrímur has written plays, poetry and countless articles for newspapers and magazines home and abroad, as well as being an active political analyst in the Icelandic media. In 2002 he translated Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet into Icelandic. Back in 1995 he did a short stint as a stand-up comedian and over the years he has produced cartoons and exhibitions revolving around his alter-ego, the cartoon character Grim. Les Contes de Grim, a collection of cartoons and art works, was published in France, by Actes Sud, in 2005.
Hallgrímur Helgason currently lives in Reykjavik and devotes his time between his art and writing and two young children. He has just finished his first novel written in English, The Hitman's Guide to House Cleaning. The Icelandic version was published in Iceland in 2008.
Bibliography:
Novels
Hella (1990)
Þetta er allt að koma (1994) (Things Are Going Great)
101 Reykjavík (1996)
Höfundur Íslands (2001) (The Author of Iceland)
Hr. Alheimur (2003) (Mr Universe)
Rokland (2005) (Stormland)
The Hitman's Guide to House Cleaning (2008)
Plays
Skáldanótt (2000) (Poets' Night)
Rómeó og Júlía (2002) (Romeo and Juliet)
Other
"Freilassing" (1994) - Short story in the collection Tundurdufl
Best of Grim (2004) - Collected works of sketches and cartoons.
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