Tour: Viking Voyager

What would we find under your bed?

Currently, there’s nothing but dust mites under the bed I share with my wife and coauthor, Veronica.  But some years ago, when Veronica’s parents came from California to live with us in the DC area, we moved into the basement to make room for our elders.  To add storage space, we stuffed odds and ends into plastic bins under our beds.  After my in-laws passed away, we moved back into the master bedroom.

Although Veronica and I come from very different heritage—hers is Chinese and mine Icelandic—multi-generational living is a common feature of both our cultures. 

What was the scariest moment of your life?

When I was thirteen, I went on a hike with two brothers from a neighboring farm.  This was in south Iceland, where I spent summers working as a farmhand.  On days off, I often went climbing with the two boys, a few years older than I.  That day we followed a sheep trail halfway up a deep river canyon.  The trail was challenging but not particularly dangerous until we met a recent rock slide, which left a gap in the path. We decided that with sufficient momentum, I could run across the gap.  As a precaution, the older boys tied around my waist a flimsy rope that was really a string.  Halfway across, I lost my footing and began an out-of-control slide towards the abyss.  I saw myself smashing onto the rocks in the river below.  A sharp tug from the string arrested my fall.  Hanging on to it I slowly crawled up the steep cliff.  I made it, but I was no longer the kid who had no fear of height.  

As I retell this story, I can feel my hackles rise at the nightmarish memory of that day in the Holt River Canyon more than half a century ago.    

Do you listen to music while writing? If so what?

I like to listen to classical music, but rarely do while I’m writing.  I prefer silence, which allows me to listen to my own thoughts.

I grew up in Iceland listening to classical music on the radio, but it wasn’t much more than elevator music to me.  When I was twelve, my dad took me to an organ concert at a church.  That took my breath away and from then on, I paid attention to what I was listening to.  As a young man, I became enchanted with the compositions of the Finnish composer, Sibelius.  His music transported me to the wilderness, a place of solitude and beauty.  Little did I know that one day I would study architecture in Finland and launch my career there. 

What is something you’d like to accomplish in your writing career next year?

I’m translating my memoir into Icelandic.  My native language ability is a bit rusty, since I left home sixty years ago.  But the more I work on it, the more it feels like an old friend.  I’ve been in contact with an editor who will polish up my manuscript for publication in Iceland.  I believe there’s an audience for Viking Voyager in my homeland.  Icelanders like to read about their history and culture and also the overseas exploits of fellow Icelanders.  My book contains both.  For a nation as small as Iceland (population 350,000), it’s important to actively record our stories or else be forgotten. 

How long did it take you to write this book? 

I started working on fragments of the book well over ten years ago.  They were just reminiscences of a trip here and there.  About five years ago, I showed a few snippets to my wife, a former journalist and published author.  To humor me, she read through them, dutifully scribbling a few remarks on the margins.  But one day, she looked up from reading and said, “Sverrir, you’ve really had an interesting life!”  From then on, my project became hers too.  We worked on it together for about three years, and the rest was fine-tuning and searching for a publisher.