Kristjana Gunnars was born in Iceland and resides in Canada. She is Professor Emeritus of the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada. After retiring from the University of Alberta, she pursued a career in the arts and continued to write. Her work in the arts sector included painting and exhibiting as well as public lectures on abstraction in art. She divided her time between the Sunshine Coast in Canada and Oslo, Norway, for over a decade after leaving the University of Alberta. In 1998 she served as Guest Professor at the University of Trier, Trier, Germany, for one semester. Since 2020, she has served as Guest Professor at the University of Iceland, Reykjavik. During that time she has also concentrated on Korean Studies and asemic writing and art.