Einar Mar Guðmundsson’s fame as an author has travelled the world wide and his novels have been translated into many languages – but in Iceland it was as a poet that Einar Mar had his first breakthrough. In 1980, he published his first two poetry books, Loneliness of the Delivery Boy (Sendisveinninn er einmana) and Who’s Wearing the Kóróna Line? (Er nokkur í Kórónafötum hér inni?) which both attracted a lot of attention, due to the power of their imagery and the freshness of his approach and became bestsellers. He followed these up, one year later, with Robinson Crusoe Returns Home (Róbinson Krúsó snýr aftur), which was equally well received, and in 1991 he published a collection of poems under the title of A Rock in the Ocean (Klettur í hafi) which was nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize that year. In 1995 he published In the Eye of Chaos (Í auga óreiðunnar).

A Short Cut Round Death is Einar Mar’s sixth collection of poems, in which the poet looks back to his origins in a powerful and candid way.

“…shakes up one’s view of the world… a tremendous and unusual book…”
THORGERDUR E. SIGURDARDOTTIR, BOKMENNTIR.IS