Disappearing Worlds in Life writing

Abstract

The year 2018 saw the publication of a variety of auto/biographical works in Iceland, with a broad range of thematic and stylistic approaches. The works I have chosen to focus on here caught the attention of critics and readers alike in very different ways. The works include a delving into a family’s difficult past, reflections on people on the margins of society, and musings on the death of the book. What they have in common is that they all focus on a group rather than an individual a family, a group of artists, a social groupand in one way or another they all examine a lost or disappearing world. This, one could argue, is one of the main themes of life writing in general, but here the authors all convey a palpable sense that they are writing about a world that has been disappearing in the last few decades due to changing mores and social conditions, and the advent of new technologies.