A devastating blow for writers

Iceland’s proposed 2027 budget would cut the Library Fund from 224.5 million krona to 142.3 million, prompting the country’s writers’ union to call the move “a devastating blow for writers.”

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We are very disappointed.

Margrét Tryggvadóttir, chair of the Writers’ Union of Iceland, said authors were deeply disappointed. She noted that the fund had been increased by 78.5 million krona last year after parliamentary action, but said that increase had not kept pace with inflation and now appeared to have been reversed.

The fund is especially important to writers who receive the largest payments from it and may not qualify for artists’ salaries. Tryggvadóttir cited children’s book authors and writers of mainly recreational books, which often sell in small numbers because they are inexpensive.

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For us writers, the Library Fund is enormously important. Those who receive the highest amounts there may even get all their income from it.

She said the proposed reduction was cold-hearted at a time when the importance of the Icelandic language is often emphasized in public speeches. The Writers’ Union plans to ask the budget committee to restore funding to the Library Fund and address the treatment of artists’ salaries, despite an increase in the number of months covered by those payments.

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We cannot continue writing unless we are paid for our work.

“For us writers, the Library Fund is enormously important,” Tryggvadóttir said. “We cannot continue writing unless we are paid for our work.” She described the fund as compensation for library loans and said it forms an extraordinarily large part of many authors’ income models.

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This is a devastating blow.