Successful writing projects have their tri-partite biographies, informed by the life histories of writer and subject matter and their productive encounter. Some of them are slowly formed while others are the result of a sudden insight or discovery.
Memorial to Rise of First Black Settler in Iceland From Djúpivogur, the East Fjords. mbl.is/Sigurður Bogi Vala Hafstað
The government allocated ISK 3 million (USD 24,000; EUR 20,000) to Múlaþing district toward the purchase the work Frelsi, or ‘Freedom,’ by Sigurður Guðmundsson. The memorial will be installed in Djúpivogur, the East Fjords, where Hans Jónatan lived.
Hans Jónatan was born into slavery in 1784 on the island of St Croix, which was a Danish colony at the time and part of the Danish West Indies. His mother was a black slave and his father a Caucasian. At the age of 12, he moved to his master’s home in Denmark. He ended up enlisting in the navy and later declared himself a free man. He subsequently became the subject of a most notorious slavery case, which he lost.