Jóhann Sigurjónsson is an important playwright in modern Icelandic literature because of the popularity of his works (whose themes he drew in good measure from Icelandic folklore and legends) on the international stage. Along with other Icelandic writers at the end of the nineteenth and commencement of the twentieth centuries, however, Jóhann lived most of his adult life in Copenhagen and used Danish as well as Icelandic for his writing, thus facilitating translations into English, French, and German.

Jóhann Sigurjónsson was born on 19 June 1880 at Laxamyri, a farm in Þingeyjarsysla, northern Iceland. His father, Sigurjón Jóhannesson, was a successful farmer and was active in local politics. His mother, Snjólaug Gudrún Þorvaldsdóttir, came from a farm in Eyjafjardarsysla. She was a second cousin of Jónas...