After graduating from Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík, he earned a master's degree (maîtrise) in philosophy from Aix-Marseille University in 1975.
[2] A 1980 film based on the novel was directed by Þorsteinn Jónsson; the last volume in the series, Sagan öll, was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1987.
[1] He has also written a two-volume non-fiction work about the writer Þórbergur Þórðarson, of which the first was nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize in the academic and general category in 2007 and both volumes won the 2009 Hagþenkir Award.
[1] In addition he has published translations into Icelandic of French works including Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, which won the DV Culture Prize in 1996, and part of Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, and published both academic and newspaper articles on cultural issues.
He was also on the board of the Félag áhugamanna um bókmenntir from 1988 to 1990, was chair of the Rithöfundasamband Íslands [is], the Icelandic Authors' Association, from 2006 to 2010, and was an editor of Tímarit Máls og menningar for many years.