"Drag Me to the Dark Side: Queer Identity and the Allure of Crime Fiction" (Wallenberg Auditorum)

We are THRILLED to announce that ward-winning Icelandic author Lilja Sigurðardóttir will come to Gustavus as our 2025-26 OUT OF SCANDINAVIA artist in residence the week of March 8-12, 2026!

Born in 1972 in Iceland, Lilja grew up in Mexico, Sweden, and Spain before returning to Iceland, where she lives now. While she is best known for her crime fiction, which has been translated into 17 languages, her work spans novels, stage plays, screenplays, and audio series. She made her fictional debut with the crime novel Steps, published in 2009 to strong reviews. In 2014, Lilja’s theater play Big Babies was awarded the Icelandic Theatre Prize Gríman, for Best Play of the Year. She followed this with the global blockbuster Reykjavik Noir crime novel trilogy: Snare (2015), Trap (2016), and Cage (2017), all nominated for major awards. The film rights to her Reykjavik Noir trilogy have been bought by Palomar Pictures in California. As a screenwriter she has worked with filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur on the Netflix science fiction/supernatural TV series Katla, which premiered in 2021. Lilja, who identifies as queer, is known for crime novels that reimagine the genre, featuring lesbian protagonists as criminals, victims, and resilient survivors, sometimes all at once. Her latest series of thrillers, named after its principal protagonist, a financial investigator named Áróra, consists of five novels, Cold as Hell (2019), Red as Blood (2020), White as Snow (2021), Dark as Night (2022), and Black as Death (2023). Lilja’s audio series, One hundred Mishaps of Hemingway, received top honors in the 2023 The Storytel Awards. While at Gustavus, Lilja will visit classes, meet informally with students, and give a free public lecture, “Drag Me to the Dark Side: Queer Identity and the Allure of Crime Fiction.” Welcome to Gustavus, Lilja! ���

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