Sjón in-conversation / Les Vampires (Cinecity)

Part of CINECITY 2025

Celebrated Icelandic author Sjón will be joined in conversation by writer Amy Raphael to discuss his work across literature and cinema, followed by a screening of an episode of Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade. France 1915–1916) in which Irma Vep is introduced.

Sjón was born in Reykjavík in 1962. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages, and he won the Nordic Council Literature Prize (the Scandinavian equivalent of the Booker) for his twisted folk tale The Blue Fox in 2005. Sjón is also a poet and librettist, Oscar-nominated for his lyrics for his friend Björk in the film Dancer in the Dark (2000). He co-wrote the acclaimed films Lamb (2021) and Robert Eggers’ The Northman (2022), and previously performed with The Sugarcubes, co-writing their biggest hit in Iceland.

His award-winning 2013 novel Moonstone – The Boy Who Never Was was described by The Guardian as “a work of miniaturist perfection: a brief, brilliant jewel of a book in which each paragraph is precision-cut, each sentence burnished.”

Set in Reykjavík in 1918, sixteen-year-old Máni is in love with the cinema; he is also secretly in love with Sola G. Her doppelganger is Irma Vep, the iconic queen of the powerful Vampires crime gang operating in the Parisian underworld, played by Musidora in the French crime serial Les Vampires.