Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir

Icelandic poet and translator

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Icelandic. (January 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Icelandic Wikipedia article at [[:is:Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|is|Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir (21 October 1942 – 7 November 2016) was an Icelandic poet and translator. She lived in Cuba from 1970 to 1975 and also lived in the U.S.S.R. for a time. She has had six books of poetry published. In translations she is most known for her work translating Russian and Spanish works. She was born in Reykjavík. In 2002, she was awarded the Icelandic Literary Prize.

Her best known poem is Kona ('woman'), from 1983:

Þegar allt hefur verið sagt
þegar vandamál heimsins eru
vegin metin og útkljáð
þegar augu hafa mæst
og hendur verið þrýstar
í alvöru augnabliksins
─kemur alltaf einhver kona
að taka af borðinu
sópa gólfið og opna gluggana
til að hleypa vindlareyknum út.

Það bregst ekki.^[1]

When all has been said
When the problems of the world
Have been weighed gauged and settled
When eyes have met
And hands been pressed
In the sobriety of the moment
–some woman always comes
To clear the table
Sweep the floor and open the windows
To let out the cigar smoke.

It never fails.^[2]

References

^ "Ljóð.is". ljod.is. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
^ Translated by Þorgerður Einarsdóttir, quoted by W. D. Valgarðsson, http://wdvalgardsonkaffihus.com/blog/2013/02/11/boys-pretending-to-be-vikings/.