Hallgrimur Helgason is an Icelandic writer and artist born in Reykjavik in 1959. He spent a year at the Art School of Iceland and another one at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany. Since 1983 he has been working as an independent artist and writer. Helgason started out as a painter, and has held over 30 solo shows and participated in over 30 group exhibitions home and abroad. As a struggling artist he lived in Boston 1985-86, in New York 1986-89 and in Paris 1990-1995. Helgason published his first novel in 1990 and got his international breakthrough as a writer with the publication of 101 Reykjavik in 1996.