Eini hálvthundrað fólk frá ymiskum oyggjasamfeløgum og tjóðum kring heimin eru í løtuni í Havnini. Rithøvundar og serfrøðingar eru savnaðir til ráðstevnu um William Heinesen og skaldskap í fjarskotnum økjum. Norðurlandahúsið skipar fyri ráðstevnuni.

Annika Olsen, borgarstjóri, helt røðu, tá ið setanin var fyrrapartin. Sjálv hevur hon skrivað serritgerð um William Heinesen, og hon fegnaðist í røðuni um, at slík ráðstevna verður fyriskipað. 

William Heinesen er annar av tveimum heiðursborgarum í Tórshavnar kommunu. Tað bleiv hann í 1980 á 80 ára degi listamansins.

Ráðstevnan heldur fram í kvøld, í allan morgin og endar leygardagin.

Niðanfyri er røðan á enskum, sum borgarstjórin bar fram.

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Dear authors, scholars, dear guests

It is a true honour for me as the Mayor of Tórshavn to welcome you all to our capital, the birthplace of William Heinesen and the centre in many of his novels and short stories. We have two honoured citizens in Tórshavn; one of which is William Heinesen.

The Municipality of Tórshavn awarded him this honour in 1980 on his eighty-year birthday because of his immense artistic work that spans over several art forms amongst others literature, visual arts, and music.

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William Heinesen begins writing within the genre of social realism. Then he begins incorporating a bit of magic into his third published novel; “The Black Cauldron”. We read about elvish people, well-known from Faroese folklore – elves that we also see in his paintings and pastels.

In “The Lost Musicians,” he expands the idea of magic as it now also covers people’s poetic understanding of reality.

The poetry that the lost musicians are capable of awakening in things enables them to contain both a realistic and a magic version of the world. William Heinesen makes this turn from social realism to a magical one after World War II.

These magical elements have been compared to magic realism found in Latin American literature such as Gabriel Garcia Marques’ “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and “The House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende. It is true that there are narrative similarities, as the real world is interwoven with magic elements, but we can also question if magic realism originates from Latin America and from literate works best known from the sixties and seventies.

We see the first glimpse of two equally worthy realities, a magic irrational and a realistic rational one, in “The Black Cauldron” from 1949. The emerging realities can be seen in his paintings many years before that. 

His development or you could say effort to unite the mythical and realistic becomes a synthesis in “The Kingdom of the Earth” from 1952. It is a hymn to life elucidated through Antonia as the fertile mother of man. As he writes:

“How lovely you are, Antonia, in the great purity and life-giving urge of your happiness! Majestically you rest in your new dignity as a human mother. You are aware of your power and know that without your breath and your sighs, the air would be a sorry thing, and without the compassionate smiles of your eyes there would be no sun or moon, and all the sparkling stars of the heavens would pine away in eternity and lose their power and fade into nothingness.“

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When I did my master’s thesis at the university, I was fascinated by the struggle between good and bad that we find in “The Kingdom of the Earth” and how childhood and its magical irrationality, imagination, creativity, and poesy fosters goodness. I would say that our ability to remain open and curious in our day-to-day interaction with other people is key to giving our lives soul and personality – and that we can do good by being realistic while adding a little magic to our everyday lives.

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As a final remark, I will recommend all of you to visit the current art exhibition at the National Art Gallery of the Faroe Islands, located in Tórshavn, containing artworks by William Heinesen. Several of these artworks have never been on display before. His artistic work is a composite whole and you can see the artist’s cosmic view of life both in papercuts as well as in his written work.

I am certain that your days here in Tórshavn will be fruitful as you dive into the poetic, satiric and life-affirming work of William Heinesen.

Annika Olsen
Mayor of Tórshavn