Rakel Helmsdal

Rakel Helmsdal (born 25 September 1966) is a Faroese author and artist. She writes novels, short stories, plays, poems for all age groups, as well as being a visual artist who illustrates some her books. She is the current chair person for the Association of Writers of the Faroe Islands .

Many of her books have been translated into other languages, and have won a number of literary awards. She has received multiple grants from the Faroese government through the Mentanargrunnur Landsins, and in 2024 she received a three-year working grant.

Her work includes collaboration with two other authors, Áslaug Jónsdóttir from Iceland and Kalle Güettler from Sweden on a series of 10 "Monsters" books starting with (No! Said Little Monster) in 2004. They are published simultaneously in the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Sweden and have been translated into many other languages.

Biography

Rakel Helmsdal was born in Tårnby near Copenhagen in 1966 by a Faroese mother and a Danish father. Her mother, Guðrið Helmsdal, an author as well, was the first Faroese woman who published a poetry collection in the Faroese language and was also the first Faroese author of either gender who published a modernistic poetry collection. Her parents moved to Leynar in the Faroe Islands in the 1970s, where her father, Ole Jacob Nielsen, has been working as a sculptural woodturner, working with Faroese wood. Helmsdal lived in France in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and during this period she wrote her first novels. Her first novel was "" (The just call me Hugo), and the following year she published her first short story collection titled (Stories from Port Janua). She has published books for people of all ages: children, youth and adults. Some of her books are illustrated by herself, and others by other artists such as the Faroese artist Edward Fuglø, who illustrated her book series and her short story collection with fairy tales about dragons etc. "".

Helmsdal has written a screenplay to a short film, co-writing the screenplay to the short film Brother Troll , which was directed by her brother Gudmund Helmsdal. The screenplay was written by Gudmund Helmsdal, Rakel Helmsdal and Torfinnur Jákupsson. The film won the Faroese audience film award named Geytin and later it won several awards from various film festivals around the world, such as at the Darbhanga International Film Festival in India, where Brother Troll won a total of five awards, including Best Script.