About Thórarinn Leifsson
Thórarinn Leifsson (born July 29, 1966) is an Icelandic author and illustrator. He graduated from the Icelandic Academy of Arts in 1989. In that same period he was a street painter in western Europe. Leifsson worked as an illustrator and web designer for many years before taking up writing. First in the form of controversial comic strips in the early nineties. Then came Total freedom written with his wife in 2001.
His real debut as an author was Father's Big Secret (2007). A book about a family with a horrible family secret: The man of the house is a Cannibal. It was very well received by critics and soon published in Denmark, Finland and Germany. Next came Grandmother's Library (2009) inspired by the bank collapse and the empty materialism of icelandic society before the crisis. It was awarded the Reykjavik Children Books Prize in 2010 and nominated for the Nordic Children's Book Prize in 2011 – an award given out every two years by librarians in the Nordic countries.
Leifsson's latest work is The Street Painter (October 2011), a novel for grownups with black and white Illustrations. It is based on the authors experiences as a street painter and tramp in Europe and Morroco.
Thórarinn lives in Reykjavík with his wife and colleague Audur Jonsdottir. He has two children; baby boy Leifur Otto with Audur and Salka born in 1992.
