Symposium and exhibition in honour of Melitta Urbancic
On Saturday 8 March 2014 an exhibition will open in Þjóðarbókhlaða, the library building at Arngrímsgata 3, in honour of the poet, sculptor and actress Melitta Urbancic. A symposium on Melitta’s life and work will be held at the opening, 13:00–15:00. Melitta’s book of poems, Frá hjara veraldar / Vom Rand der Welt (From the ends of the earth), is being published this March in a bilingual edition by the Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute and the University of Iceland Press. The poems were translated into Icelandic by Sölvi Björn Sigurðsson, with an afterword by Gauti Kristmannsson. Melitta wrote the poems about her experience as an exile in Iceland in 1939–1943, and they are now published for the first time. The project is run by the Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute for Foreign Languages, the National and University Library of Iceland and Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature, in cooperation with Melitta’s descendants. The Austrian Embassy in Copenhagen supports the exhibition.
More information is on the website of Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature: http://bokmenntaborgin.is/fra-hjara-veraldar/