NEW YORK, 
Feb 26 — Stand-up comedian and Icelandic actor Jón Gnarr recounts his experiences as accidental mayor of Reykjavik in June 2014 memoir “Gnarr: How I Became the Mayor of a Large City in Iceland and Changed the World”.
The satirical Best Party was set up in 2009 in response to the collapse of Iceland’s three biggest banks.
He amused voters with a clutch of electoral promises that included free towels at the nation’s swimming baths, a Disney theme park on moorland near the city airport, and palm trees along the city’s chilly shoreline.
But Gnarr’s candid nature and his party’s surrealist vision, coupled with low confidence in traditional polititians and bankers, won them six of the capital council’s 15 seats in 2010, after which they formed a coaliton with the more established Social Democratic Alliance.
The comic is already subject of a documentary, “Gnarr”, but has ruled out re-election when his current term ends this May.
“My youngest son was quite content when I told him,” Gnarr wrote on his Facebook page. “‘Anyone can be mayor but there is only one who can be my dad.’”
“I guess this is what I will do in the future; be a writer... I have this vision of becoming this eccentric surrealist old man. I will write some fiction, plays and a book on religion. And some books on some other stuff. They will be great.”
His memoir has been given a publication date of June 24 in the US and is due the same month in the UK. — AFP/Relaxnews
