Katrín Jakobsdóttir is Prime Minister of Iceland since 2017 and party leader of the Left Party – the Greens. Besides that, she is basically a literary scholar and has studied crime novels.
She met crime writer Ragnar Jónasson when they were both on the jury to select the country’s best translated crime novel.
It was he who came up with the proposal to write a book together, which Katrín Jakobsóttir then thought sounded like a good idea.
– I never really planned to keep that promise. But when the pandemic hit and everything changed, we somehow decided to try to write this book in the evenings, during the times when I would have otherwise been in meetings and doing things that were not allowed during the pandemic.
“Everyone carries a book in their heart”
Katrín Jakobsdóttir believes that a sitting prime minister writes and launches a novel while leading the country is not something that surprises Icelanders.
– We have a saying in Iceland, that every person carries at least one book in their heart, says Katrín Jakobsdóttir.
Iceland has a long tradition of book lovers. Approximately one in ten Icelanders will have a book published during their lifetime, and per capita they print more books than any other country in the world.
– Everyone knew about my interest in crime novels, about my studies and all that before. So writing is something expected to be done here – not just politicians.