About

Self-portrait inside Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels, Great Basin Desert, Utah
At Sun Tunnels by Nancy Holt, Great Basin Desert, Utah

I am a poet, essayist, novelist, and Icelandic-English translator.

My poems have appeared in Salamander, Field, Poetry East, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Hudson Review, Verse Daily, OnEarth, Meridian, WomanArts Quarterly, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and many other journals. Click here for samples and links to my poems.

My research on how Iceland’s literary audience changed during modernization is summarized in the essay “Poetry, Hunger, and Electric Lights: Lessons from Iceland on Poetry and Its Audience,” originally published in The Cambridge Quarterly (September 2015). Click here for the abstract and a link to the full text.

I have also published essays in the Hedgehog Review, Iceland’s largest daily Morgunblaðið, Silk Road Review, highonadventure.com, and other venues. Click here for links to some of my essays.

I translate poetry, art texts, art criticism, and fiction from Icelandic to English for leading artists, writers, art institutions, and publishers in Iceland, Europe, and North America. Click here for news about some of my recent and forthcoming translations.

My Icelandic-English translations include Harpa Árnadóttir’s artist’s diary June (Crymogea, 2011) and Sigfús Bjartmarsson’s bestiary Raptorhood (Uppheimar, 2007).

I am currently seeking representation for my YA novel To Hear with Your Heart. Meanwhile my adult novel is back in the smithy, and another YA novel is underway. Click here for information on the novels.

Born in the Pacific Northwest and raised in Watertown, Massachusetts, I am a citizen of Iceland and the United States.

Please direct inquiries to:  sarah@sarahbrownsberger.com

dancing on the Lido
dancing with waves
basalt in northern Iceland inspires a woman to dance
dancing with basalt
dancing with a lava field
dancing with lava