Sjon

Sjon’s love for words began as a teenager when he would decipher David Bowie lyrics. He published his first book of prose in 1987 but moved on to writing literature after reading ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Bulgakov, which showed him that, unlike poetry, everything is possible in the novel. Born in Reykjavik, Sjon has worked with Lars von Trier and Bjork – he wrote lyrics for ‘Dancer in the Dark’ – and even had a four-year stint in politics. He tells Georgina Godwin about his deeply cultured life and latest novel ‘Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was’, the story of a Reykjavik plague in 1918 and how a marginalised kid shows compassion to the people that despise him.