The option is always on the table. When we [with Bjork] were starting as creative kids in the Eighties, we found each other. I was 19, she was 16 and a friendship was made.

Katie Paterson introduced the project [ Future Library ] to a handful of writers at a very fine international literary festival in Denmark at the Louisiana Museum, I sent her an e-mail when I got back to Iceland, saying, "It's a wonderful project.

I have to face questions like, "Do I simply write the best text I possibly can? Do I specifically engage with contemporary issues? 'Do I consciously try to write something that is timeless?"

Literature acknowledges that life is complicated.

Now 10 percent of this population [in Iceland] of 330,000 people were born elsewhere - Polish, North Africans, Europeans, Americans - people are coming from all over. It is still changing society in a good way.

Bjork is one of my oldest friends so we share the friendship and common roots. That is what we build on when we work together.

I'm not one of those writers who writes everyday.