Published in 2011, ‘Between the Trees‘ (Icelandic: Milli trjánna) is the eighth short story collection by Icelandic author Gyrðir Elíasson that won the ‘Nordic Council Literature Prize‘ in 2011. Labelled “the great stylist” in Icelandic contemporary literature, Gyrðir Elíasson grew up in Sauðárkrókur (Northwest Iceland) and now lives in Reykjavik: his first poetry collection was published in 1983, and since then he has published poetry collections, novels and collections of short stories. He is also a translator, mainly from English, including some of William Saroyan’s and Richard Brautigan’s works. Gyrðir won the ‘Icelandic Literary Prize‘ in 2000 for his collection of short stories ‘Gula húsið’ and has twice been nominated for the ‘Nordic Council Literature Prize‘ (1991 and 2002) before finally winning it in 2011. ‘Milli trjánna‘ is a collection of 47 short stories, all characterised by the image-rich style that graces Gyrðir’s works. Content-wise, this collection is close to the writer’s former novels and short prose: as the readers know from the previous works, one can clearly feel the different forms of unease and mystery, as well as loneliness, dreams, travels, childhood memories and future visions, and also the charming humour. According to the Adjudicating Committee, the short story collection ‘Milli trjánna’ is stylistically outstanding literary art which depicts inner and outer threats in dialogue with world literature.
