Björn Halldórsson was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1983. He studied English and American Literature at the University of East-Anglia in Norwich and has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. During his studies in Glasgow, he taught creative writing seminars at the university and took part in the city’s literature festival, AyeWrite!

Along with working as a writer, translator and journalist, Björn has directed panels at festivals such as the Reykjavík Literature Festival and the PEN World Voices Festival in New York – where he resided from 2016-2019. His short stories have been published by literary journals in Iceland and Scotland and have also appeared in translation in English, German, Italian and Hebrew.

Björn’s first book, a short story collection titled Smáglæpir (Misdemeanours), was published in 2017. It won the Icelandic Literature Centre’s Grassroots Grant. His second book, Stol (Loss), a novel about a father and son who take an ill-fated road trip on the Icelandic ring road in a desperate attempt to connect before the father’s demise from a debilitating and terminal brain tumour, was published in early 2021. He lives in Reykjavík with his wife.