Icelandic scholar and former MP Mörður Árnason dies at 73

Icelandic-language scholar and former MP Mörður Árnason has died aged 73, mbl.is reports. He died on Tuesday morning, November 10, at the palliative care unit of Landspítali in Kópavogur, after a serious illness over the past two months. He had lived with cancer for 12 years but continued working and following public affairs.

Árnason was born in Reykjavík on October 30, 1953, the eldest child of scholar and writer Árni Björnsson and journalist and substitute MP Vilborg Harðardóttir. He graduated from Reykjavík Junior College in 1973 and earned a BA in Icelandic and linguistics from the University of Iceland and the University of Oslo. From 1979 to 1981, he pursued postgraduate studies in linguistics at the Sorbonne in Paris.

His career included work at the University Dictionary, as a journalist at the newspaper Þjóðviljinn and as its editor from 1988 to 1989. He was information officer for the finance minister from 1989 to 1991, then worked as an editor for the publishing houses Mál og menning and Edda from 1991 to 2003. He later worked for the Social Democratic Alliance and as an independent Icelandic-language scholar and politician at the Reykjavík Academy.

Árnason represented the Social Democratic Alliance in parliament for Reykjavík South from 2003 to 2007 and Reykjavík North from 2010 to 2013. He was also an alternate MP for Reykjavík from 2014 to 2015. His parliamentary committee work included education, environment, business, transport and foreign affairs; he chaired the environment committee in 2010 and 2011. He also served for many years on the broadcasting council and later on the board of broadcaster RÚV, and represented Iceland at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 2011 to 2013.

He is survived by his wife, poet and healthcare assistant Linda Vilhjálmsdóttir, his daughter Ölrún Marðardóttir, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.