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About Stefán
Live to write, write to live
Stefán Máni was raised in the rural fishing village Ólafsvík, on the Snaefellsnes-peninsula in western Icleland. At the age of twenty six he put all his belongings in an old car and moved to the capital city of Reykjavík to publish his first book. For the first ten years as a writer, he was working full or half time as a construction worker, a dishwasher, in a printing press and in a home for the insane. His first major success, at home and abroad, was the haunting thriller The Ship. Since then he has been writing the hugely popular Grímsson detective series, among occasional thriller and other work. In 2012 the movie Black’s Game was premiered, based on his best selling thriller by the same title. The movie is the second most popular and second most grossing film in Icelandic history. One the producers of the film was the famous director Nicolas Winding-Refn (Drive): Watch here.
Stefán Máni is a movie buff and a passionate music fan; mostly of movies from the 70’s and hard rock and heavy metal. His favorite movies are Taxi Driver, The Godfather and Zodiac, to name a few. Among his favorite bands are Creedence Clearwater Revival, Black Sabbath and Type-O-Negative. His extraordinary and larger-than-life detective, H. Grímsson, is loosely based on the legendary Peter Steele, Type-O-Negative’s vocalist, bass player and songwriter (1962 – 2010). Stefán Máni still lives in Reykjavík. He is still writing …
" The rusty brown hull rests on the reef below the surface, slanting thirty degrees at the back and tilting another five to its port side, with its prow piercing through the ice and its stern suspended in midair over a pitch black crack. Way at the back, a six-storey wheelhouse stoops and rises from the fathomless depths like a haunted house, staring through the empty windows of the bridge into nothingness. In daylight and good weather, a bluish light filters through the ice and over the depths where curious seals swim around the wreck, which drifts to and fro with the ocean currents, issuing drawn out screeches and muffled thuds, and a thick trail of oil that in the faint light looks green, pink and violet, simmers up under the layer of the ice like some liquid form of the northern lights.
That which sleeps for eternity is not dead… "
FROM:The Ship That which sleeps for eternity is not dead… "
stefán máni
Books
The Grímsson detective series
H. Grímsson is clairvoyant and frequently sees the grim shadow of death before it approaches. This intimacy of death has saved his skin in the past, but it is not a gift he bears lightly.
The Bull and the Girl
Two tourist girls find themselves stranded in the remote parts of east Iceland when their car breaks down. They head to a nearby farm, Uxavellir, which at first seems to be abandoned. There is no one in sight, only the paranoid bark of a dog inside the house.
The Shadows
The story is a psychological thriller about Kolbrún (Kolla) and Tímóteus (Timmi), who are going on a hiking trip in the fall, crossing a barren Icelandic highland.
Memento Mori
Odinn R. Elsuson, a hardened criminal, finds himself one day in the possession of a mysterious undelivered letter.
Wolfheart – Synopsis
The book is about Alexander, a 19 year old high-school drop out in Reykjavík. His life takes an unexpected turn when he meets and falls in love a 17 year old girl, Védís. Everything becomes more complicated when he notices changes in his body after a night he can not remember. He wakes up in a strange place and is met there by a group of men who claim that he is a werewolf – like them. Now, everything happens quickly and his unexciting life as a coke-truck driver gets full of unexpected events.
Awards and nominations
A list of the prizes and honours Stefán Máni has received for his work.
2007
- The Ship wins the Drop of blood, the Icelandic prime award for crime fiction*
2010
- Noir Océan is selected the crime fiction of the year in France by renowned literary magazine Liré
2012
- The House (a Grímsson Series title) wins the Drop of blood, the Icelandic prime award for crime fiction*
2014
- Cruelty (a Grímsson Series title) wins the Drop of blood, the Icelandic prime award for crime fiction*
- Présages (a Grímsson Series title) wins the Prix Des Lecteurs at the 10th Festival Du Polar in Villeneuve Lez Avignon in France
* And nominated for The Glass Key, the famous Scandinavian award for crime fiction