Gyrðir Elíasson was born in 1961, and has been a full time writer almost all his adult life, well-known in Iceland for his poetry and novels as well as his short stories. His collection The Yellow House was awarded the Icelandic Literature Prize and the Halldor Laxnes Prize for Literature in 2000, and he has received numerous other nominations since. He is also a prolific translator of American literature into Icelandic, having translated four of Richard Brautigan’s novels.

In April 2011 he won the prestigious Nordic Council Literature Prize for his new short story collection, Milli trjánna (Among the Trees).