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'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,' Shakespeare had one of his characters say in Hamlet. Coming from a former Danish colony, Vignisson addresses the conditions and characteristics of the Icelandic nation that may have contributed to the world scale failures of the banks in his small Nordic dreamland. He looks in the rear view mirror for a while, ruminates on his Norse heritage, and draws a picture of the current situation in this miniature world. A graduate of the University of Iowa, Runar H. Vignisson is an author and a translator who has won many honors for his writing, among them The Icelandic Translation Award for his translation of J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace. Vignisson has also translated many books by acclaimed American authors, such as Philip Roth, Amy Tan, Cormac McCarthy, and William Faulkner. He is the author of six books of fiction and the seventh is forthcoming later this year. His short stories have been featured in Icelandic, German, and Spanish anthologies. Vignisson is currently Assistant Professor and Director of the recently established Creative Writing Program at the University of Iceland. More information on the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council can be found here.