Andri Snær Magnason's Blog, page 4
November 3, 2019
On Time and Water out in Icelandic – soon in 14 languages
On Time and Water was published in Icelandic October 4th and has been on the top of the bestselling list in Iceland for four weeks by now.
This fall I have been performing as well a “one man show”, a lecture/performance/talk on the main stage of the Reykjavík City Theatre. Tthe first four performances have been sold out and at least two more are planned in Novemberl. With me on stage is the highly talented Högni Egilsson and a children’s quire from Kópavogur performing two pieces specially made by Högni for this show.
The Time and Water project has been going on for some years while I have been writing the book, it has evolved through lectures, talks and discussion in universities around the world.
Time and Water has now been sold to 14 publishers worldwide, (was seven when this article was written) so it will be published 2020 in English, German, French, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Hungarian to name a few.
During the next 100 years we expect to see a fundamental change of all the elements of water on our planet. Many glaciers will melt and the sea levels will rise at a faster rate than humans have seen before. Acidification will bring the oceans to a pH level not seen in 30 million years. Patterns of rain and snow will change dramatically in most areas. We could say that nature has stopped changing in geological speed but has entered human speed. This extreme shift is larger than any metaphor or any words or language we are used to.
Just like the huge gravity of a black hole makes it invisible, you could say that the issues we are faced with are so large that they swallow all words and meaning. We hear words like “climate change” but for most people they are just white noise, 99% of the real meaning is not included in our imagination. To describe a black hole you look at the surrounding galaxies and to understand these issues Andri weaves a web of stories from mythology, to crocodile research in the Amazon to his grandmother’s honeymoon on Europe’s largest glacier, to our understanding of our intimate time. We are faced with the almost impossible task of cutting carbon emissions to zero in 2050 according to newest studies. The question is – are we too late to do something? What can actually be done in 30 years? This calls for nothing less than a new scientific revolution, projects on the scale of the Manhattan project, new paradigms and a new approach to almost everything done in the 20th century.
Here is a good podcast to get some insight into the diverse body of work by Andri Snær Magnason.
October 16, 2019
On the BBC travel show with Cat Moh
I travelled with Cat Moh from BBC Travel Show to see the site of the former Ok glacier. The full length of the program can be found here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0008v9g/the-travel-show-icelands-melting-glaciers
This one might vanish from the website soon but here is a shorter segment from BBC News:
At present around 10% of Iceland is covered in glaciers but scientists believe climate change will mean they will all be gone in 200 years.
The Travel Show’s Cat Moh joins Icelandic author Andri Snaer Magnason on a walk to the site of the now disappeared Okjokull glacier which is commemorated with plaque.
Grandfather Björn Thorbjarnarson dies at 98
I was lucky to visit my grandfather just three weeks ago at his home in New Jersey where he lived with his wife Margaret. He was 98 and a few months old but his mind was clear, while his feet were failing him. We could talk for a few hours and I could show him my new book, On time and water where he plays a big role. He came to America for a one year internship in 1948 and these years became two and three until he settled in the US and the years became 70. As he lived far away from us the visits were not as many as they could have been but whenI lived in the US as a child it would always be fun to visit the family in Brentwood, they had a swimming pool a boa constrictor and a small caiman crocodile, the pets of John that later became a crocodilian. In the later years I would often come over and chat for a while. I could ask him questions about time – if 100 years were a long time or a short time, and he said without hesitation, a short time. His life story was extraordinary, his carrier as a surgeon with patients like the Shah of Iran, Oppenheimer and Andy Warhol. Grandfather will be missed by his large family of daughters and grandchildrenm while we are grateful for his long life and his peaceful passing in his sleep. Here is an obituary about afi Björn in The New York Times.
October 15, 2019
Mayor of Los Angeles reads the Ok memorial text at C40
Despite inaction on behalf of climate issues by the USA government there is some hope as mayors of major cities seem to be pushing things forward. I was honoured to see that Eric Garcetti Mayor of LA chose the text I wrote in memory of Ok glacier as a call to action at the C40 conference in LA. C40 represents many of the largest megacities in the world, with 700 million inhabitants and 25% of the global GDP. In the words of Garcetti:
,,As your incoming Chair, I will work with you to make the 2020s the decade of climate action.
This is the single most important decade in human history … a decade that will define and determine whether life sustains as we know it …
And there are reminders all around us.
One of them is in Iceland, about two hours to the northeast of Reykjavík, where you’ll find the Ok volcano.
On top of the volcano, a group of people recently placed a plaque titled “a letter to the future.”
It reads: “Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as glacier. In the next 200 years all our main glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it. August 2019. 415 ppm CO2.”
Only you — our descendants and their descendants — will know if we did it.”
The Ok text is at minute 12:50 in the video and full speech can be seen here.
September 9, 2019
Coming to Brooklyn – readings September 12th and 15th
Thursday September 12th at 8pm
and Sunday September 15th at 5pm
Molasses Books
Thursday September 12th 8pm
This year, Iceland Naturally welcomes author Andri Snær Magnason to Taste of Iceland in New York City. Andri Snær Magnason will discuss his wide ranging work that includes supermarket poetry, science fiction, and critical writings about current issues in Iceland. Andri is one of Iceland’s leading literary voices and his novel LoveStar won the leading science fiction awards in France 2016 – Le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, and a Philip K. Dick Citation of Excellence in the United States. Andri has won the Icelandic literary awards for fiction, non-fiction and YA/children’s books. His newest book, The Casket of Time, came out in April 2019. Andri is also currently the chairman of Reykjavík, Unesco City of Literature. Andri and The Casket of Time were recently reviewed in the New York Times.
WHERE: 
| 770 Hart Street, Brooklyn, NY 11237
WHEN: September 12 | Molasses Books | Official events start at 8pm, reading starts at 8.30pm
COST: Free
WHO: Andri Snær Magnason
https://www.facebook.com/events/305616813579115/
Spoonbill and Sugartown Books
Sunday September 15 | 5pm
Note: 20 minute reading/talk, additional time for talking, introduction and Q&A.
Spoonbill and Sugartown Books | 218 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11249
COST: Free
WHO: Andri Snær Magnason
https://www.facebook.com/events/2389341254491316/
August 24, 2019
ESERA 2019 – Keynote for Science Teachers in Bologna
I am heading to Bologna where I will be talking to the annual ESERA Conference – August 26-30, 2019. ESERA is one of the most important conference on science education that we have in Europe. I will talk about the topics I have been working on the last years and will be part of my upcoming book. I will also talk about the collaboration I did with Rice University and Oddur Sigurðsson geologist with the Ok Glacier Memorial. That might be a good example of the collaboration of science, humanities and the arts.
Here are the invited plenary speakers:
And here is my program:
Plenary Monday 26th
On Time and Water
Andri Snær Magnason, writer, Iceland
During the next 100 years we expect to see a fundamental change of all the elements of water on our planet. Many glaciers will melt and the sea levels will rise at a faster rate than has been seen before. Acidification will bring the oceans to a pH level not seen in 30 million years. Patterns of rain and snow will change dramatically in most areas. We could say that nature is not changing in geological speed anymore but entering human speed. This extreme shift is larger than any metaphor or any words or language we are used to. Just like the huge gravity of a black hole makes it invisible, you could say that this issue is so large that it swallows all words and meaning. We hear words like “climate change” but for most people they are just white noise, 99% of the real meaning is not included in our imagination. To describe a black hole you look at the surrounding galaxies and to understand these issues Andri weaves a web of stories from mythology, to his grandmother’s honeymoon on Europe’s largest glacier, to our understanding of our intimate time. We are faced with the almost impossible task of cutting carbon emissions to zero in 2050 according to newest studies. The question is – are we too late to do something? What can actually be done in 30 years? This calls for nothing less than a new scientific revolution, projects on the scale of the Manhattan project, new paradigms and a new approach to almost everything done in the 20th century. This huge narrative should be a source of motivation for all science studies in the next decades.
Andri Snær Magnason is an Icelandic writer born in Reykjavik. He is a writer of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and documentary films. His book LoveStar won the Philip K. Dick special citation in 2014 and Le Grand prix de l’Imaginaire in France 2016. and his children’s book, The Story of the Blue Planet was the first children’s book to win the Icelandic literary award and has been published in 32 languages. His book Dreamland, a Self Help Manual for a Frightened Nation has contributed to a new energy policy in Iceland and the vision of the Highland National Park in the Central Highlands of Iceland. Andri Snær Magnason ran for president in Iceland in 2016 and came third in the election.
July 22, 2019
Ok-glacier in Memoriam // A letter to the future
In memory of Ok – glacier – the first glacier in Iceland to be formally lost to human related climate change I was asked to form the text of a memorial plaque to be placed on top of Ok mountain. This is a project initiated by Dominic Boyer and Cymene Howe researchers from Rice University in Texas.
“This will be the first monument to a glacier lost to climate change anywhere in the world,” Howe said. “By marking Ok’s passing, we hope to draw attention to what is being lost as Earth’s glaciers expire. These bodies of ice are the largest freshwater reserves on the planet and frozen within them are histories of the atmosphere. They are also often important cultural forms that are full of significance.”
Click here for the full press release.
Glaciers are an important part of my family history. My grandparents were founding partners of the Icelandic Glacial Research Society in the 1950’s. The words I wrote for the memorial plaque are very basic and to the point.
A letter to the future
Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as glacier. In the next 200 years all our main glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.
August 2019, 415 ppm CO2
The name of the glacier, Ok might cause some curiosity. What is Ok in Icelandic?
Ok means yoke in Icelandic and the dictionary meaning is something like this:
yoke [jəuk] noun
1 a frame placed across a person’s shoulders, for carrying water.
2 something that weighs people down, a burden.
So the first version of my text referred the two meanings of the word:
Yoke held the water.
Yoke has melted.
The yoke is growing.
I also wrote a poem in the Edda metric form, the same as the poem Völuspá. Tthe draft was something like this:
Ok/Yoke in Memoriam:
Glacier melts
and glaciers
ocean rises with oceans
beach sinks
with beaches
Yoke becomes the yoke
Ok
Jökull hverfur
og jöklar
hafið rís og höfin
sekkur strönd
og strendur
Ok verður að oki
The melting of the glaciers is an issue all future generations will have to deal with and adapt to. As the glaciers are not vanishing. They are becoming an ocean that rises.
These issues are the theme of my upcoming book, On Time and Water. To be published in Icelandic in 2019.
July 16, 2019
The New York Times Review on The Casket of Time
The Casket of Time has been published in English and is available in the English speaking world.
The 9th of July, on my grandfathers 98th birthday a super good review was published in the New York Times
“I loved this book so much — it is a cerebral tale, well told and unabashedly philosophical. It is dark, funny and grim. So grim that I fear it will not be for everyone. Mad kings, after all, have a tendency not only to wage endless wars, butalso to heap untold sorrows and horrors and pain on their subjects. So it goes in “The Casket of Time.”
The review, written by author and Newbery Medal winner Kelly Barnhill can be seen here. The Casket of Time is now available in 12 languages.
The Casket of Time is my second book to be reviewed in The New York Times. The Story of The Blue Planet was reviewed a few years ago. “A Seussean mix of wonder, wit and gravitas.” The Story of the Blue Planet is published by Seven Stories Press in New York and Pushkin Press in the UK. 
July 7, 2019
Time Sensitive – New Podcast
Here is a new podcast, my talk with Andrew Zuckerman – click here to enter the site. Transcript, chapters, pictures. Lots of stuff.
Time Sensitive features candid, revealing portraits of curious and courageous people in business, the arts, and beyond who have a distinct perspective on time. Each week, co-hosts Spencer Bailey and Andrew Zuckerman respectively interview a leading mind who has made a profound impact in their field, contributed to the larger conversation, and is concerned with the planet we all share.
At Time Sensitive, we value time—especially your time.
Each episode is around an hour—long enough, we feel, to establish a thoughtful, intimate conversation and offer insights that just aren’t possible in a quicker format. (Understanding that not everyone has 60 minutes to spare, we also split our episodes into chapters, each between 5 to 25 minutes long; you can explore the episodes by chapter exclusively here on the timesensitive.fm site.)
We also believe that a podcast doesn’t just have to be a rich audio experience. That’s why, on the site, you’ll find condensed and edited transcripts of the interviews, with hyperlinks, and alongside them corresponding visuals. We hope it looks as good as it sounds.
The Future of Time – book talk with Bjarke Ingels
Author Andri Snær Magnason (Dreamland: A Self Help Manual for a Frightened Nation) and architect/futurist Bjarke Ingels joined us on May 7 for “The Future of Time,” a book launch event for Magnason’s new book “The Casket of Time,” to discuss how we approach the concept of time during an era of uncertainty, and how our stories and other creations can give shape to the future. What comes to mind when we talk about the future and when a scientist talks about the year 2100? How do we relate to that future on a personal level, and how does that resonate in architecture or writing? Hear Andri and Bjarke’s discuss this and more.
