About the writer

María was a bookworm from childhood, and the world of words became dear to her early on. When she graduated from secondary school at eighteen – a little too young to go abroad alone to study acting – she decided to use the time to train as a writer and applied for a job as a journalist at Morgunblaðið. The editors were somewhat surprised by the young applicant but decided to give her a chance, and a month later she was hired permanently. At Morgunblaðið she gained wide experience of working with text in many forms, from news to longer articles and interviews. María was a staff journalist at Morgunblaðið from 1982 to 1984 and a freelance writer thereafter. She worked as a programme maker at the radio station Bylgjan for a summer and later sent radio columns from New York. She also hosted the television programme femin.is on Stöð 2 for a season and helped create the show from the ground up.

When it came to theatre, she had developed a strong sense of dramatic structure, dialogue and the sound of text, which served her well in all her script work – first as an actor and later as the author of adaptations and original plays.