“Icelandic novelist Bragi Ólafsson’s English-language debut is part Beckettian or even Kafkaesque black comedy, part existentialist novel in the Paul Auster mode, and part locked-room mystery in which the murderee is alive and well and hiding in the bedroom.” That’s how Kirkus Reviews describes The Pets, a hilarious book in which the protagonist hides under his bed for the majority of the novel. Widely known as the bassist for The Sugarcubes (Bjork’s first band), Bragi has since become an inventive, popular, and award-winning novelist in his home country of Iceland. On October 7th, come to hear Bragi read from this “dark, strange, elusive, compelling, and oddly charming” book, and talk about Icelandic literature and culture with translator Lytton Smith.

At this roundtable, four translators—who work in a variety of languages and genres—will discuss their experiences as literary translators. The conversation will explore a number of different topics, from how they got started as translators, to the obstacles of retranslating classic works, to translating film scripts during the recent writers’ strike, and should be lively and informative.

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Bragi Ólafsson was born in Reykjavik, and may be most well known for playing bass in The Sugarcubes, Björk’s first band. After recording three albums and touring the world, he quit making music and turned to writing. He is the author of several books of poetry and short stories, and four novels, including Time Off, which was nominated for the Icelandic Literature Prize in 1999 (as was The Pets), and Party Games, for which Bragi received the DV Cultural Prize in 2004. His most recent novel—The Ambassador—was a finalist for the 2008 Nordic Literature Prize and received the Icelandic Bookseller’s Award as best novel of the year.

Two of the most respected international authors of our time, Salman Rushdie and Umberto Eco, will read from their work and discuss literature at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 1, in the East River Road Auditorium at the University of Rochester’s Advancement and Alumni Center, 300 East River Road. The event, which is part of the PEN World Voices Festival, is being hosted by Open Letter, the University of Rochester’s new press dedicated to publishing works of literature in translation. The event is free and open to the public.