Biography

Ármann Reynisson was born in Reykjavik in 1951. He has played a significant role in cultural and business life in Iceland since he returned from his studies at The London School of Economics in 1982.

Always unconventional by choice, Reynisson has usually turned to testing out innovations in the various occupations he has taken up over the years. As a result he is regarded as both untraditional and controversial by his fellow Icelanders. After he completed his education,

Ármann Reynisson became one of the most influential pioneers on the Icelandic financial scene, which at the time was decades behind most other European nations. For a time, he ran a number of companies in various areas of commerce. He has always been a staunch supporter of culture and the arts and made contributions out of his own music fund to young and aspiring musicians. His parties are always a special occasion and populated with guests from all walks of life.

Ármann Reynisson’s business and home were decimated almost overnight by various government offices, who had a little experience at the time of modern business practices or innovations that were common elsewhere in the world. Indeed, Ármann’s life lay in ruins and he was all but deprived of his ordinary human rights. He was dragged from one court hearing to another for a period of five years and ultimately sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. It later transpired that Ármann had been accused and convicted of conducting his business affairs in a manner that was consonant with and endorsed by the financial practices all over the world and which are fully valid and lawful in Iceland today. This six-year period brought about significant changes in Ármann’s life and led to his changing many of his views and opinions. Instead of giving up when all and everything seemed to be turning against him, he started up a new branch of business and ran it from his home. In doing so he turned his back on a life of ease and luxury and took to meditation, physical exercise and exploring nature.

These dramatic changes in his life opened Ármann’s eyes to new insights into people and existence, and not just to the superficial things that people usually fix their sights on but to a deeper reality that they do not often see. It was in August, 2000 that the need to express himself in writing finally brought him to sit down and write out his first vignettes. That broke the ice, and since that time, the flow has hardly abated. He has now published eighteen volumes of vignettes over the same number of years. Moreover, it came to light after he published the first volume that he had introduced a new genre to Icelandic literature.