Birna Bjarnadottir and Finnbogi Gunmundsson, Eds.: My Parents: Memoirs of New World Icelanders

Birna Bjarnadottir and Finnbogi Gunmundsson, eds. My Parents: Memoirs of New World Icelanders. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2007. 124 pp. Notes. $22.95 sc. In 1956, Finnbogi Gunmundsson, who served as the first chair of Icelandic Language and Literature at the University of Manitoba, published in Reykjavik a collection of fourteen memoirs written by second-generation Icelanders in North under the title Foreldrar minir: Endurminningar nokkurra Islendinga Vestan hafs. The volume My Parents: Memoirs of New World Icelanders presents an English translation of a selection of seven essays chosen by Finnbogi Gunmundsson from the fourteen originally published in Icelandic. Only one of the essays has been previously translated (by Nina Campbell) and published in English: the piece on the acclaimed poet of the Rocky Mountains Stephan G. Stephansson and his wife Helga Jonsdottir, written by their daughter Rosa Benediktsson. The six other essays have been translated specifically for this volume by Arny Hjaltadottir, Katelin Parson, and David Gislason; the last-mentioned translated the verses included in the essays. In her preface to the volume, co-editor Birna Bjarnadottir, who currently serves as the fourth chair of Icelandic Language and Literature at the University of Manitoba, explains the purpose of the book: This selection is intended to give readers a representative sample of the different experiences of this generation of Icelandic pioneers throughout North America (vii). Following a brief survey of the emigration of Icelanders to North America, which is generally considered to have begun in 1870, and their settlement in various parts of the United States and Canada, Birna Bjarnadottir muses on the role of the Icelandic cultural heritage in the survival of the settlers, pointing out that [w]hen arriving on a foreign shore, the immigrant cannot help but carry a few distinctive seeds of cultural heritage. As well, the immigrant might be the most accurate yardstick there is for measuring a few essential dimensions of the human condition itself, or how it feels to belong to humanity (xii). Judged by modern literary standards, the essays in this collection are somewhat uneven in their quality. Sigurlina Backman's account of the lives of her parents Olafur G. Johnson and Sigarunur Gunbrandsdottir, who emigrated in 1876 and settled first in Manitoba and later in North Dakota and Saskatchewan before making Manitoba their permanent home, is certainly interesting, but it is overly nostalgic and one-dimensional and reads more like an obituary than a memoir. Much the same may be said about Valdimar Bjornsson's sentimental description of his parents Gunnar Bjornsson and Ingibjorg Agustina Jonsdottir, who emigrated in 1876 and 1883, respectively, and settled in Minnesota. Indeed, the author, who for several years worked as an editor for the St. …

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