William Heinesen

In 1987 he was awarded the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize ("little Nobel").

In 1985 he was awarded the Karen Blixen Medal from the Danish Academy.

In 1984 he received the Children's Books Prize of Tórshavn City Council (Barnabókaheiðursløn Tórshavnar býráðs)

When there were rumours that William Heinesen was about to receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1981, he wrote to the Swedish Academy and renounced his candidacy. Later he explained why:

In 1980 on his 80th birthday Heinesen was appointed "Tórshavn's Citizen of Honour" by his home town.

In 1980 he received the Danish Critics Prize for Literature (Kritikerprisen).

He was awarded with the Faroese Literature Prize in 1975.

Heinesen was not content with writing only novels. In the fifties he began writing short stories as well. Most of them have been printed in these three collections entitled The Enchanted Light, Gamaliel's Bewitchment and Cure Against Evil Spirits (1969). In the novel The Good Hope, his main character the Rev. Peder Børresen is based on the historical person Rev. Lucas Debes. When Heinesen was asked how long it had taken to write it, he answered "Forty years. But then I did other things in between."

He received The Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 1965 for his novel Det gode håb (The Good Hope), published in 1964. In the story Heinesen had the difficult task of reproducing 17th-century Danish. He succeeded, and won the prize. It is widely considered his best work.

He was awarded the Danish literary prize Holberg Medal in 1960.

He published his first collection of poetry when he was 21 and he had three more published before he wrote his first novel Blæsende gry (Stormy Dawn) in 1934. He read every single one of the chapters to the painter Sámal Joensen-Mikines, as he was worried that his Danish was not good enough. That was followed up with Noatún (1938). Noatún has a strong political message – solidarity is the key to a good society. His next book The Black Cauldron (1949) deals with the aftermath of decadent living combined with religious hysteria. In The Lost Musicians (1950) Heinesen leaves the social realism of his earlier works behind, instead giving himself over to straightforward storytelling. Mother Pleiades (1952) is an ode to his imagination. Its subtitle is "a Story From the Beginning of Time".

Andreas William Heinesen (15 January 1900 – 12 March 1991) was a poet, novel writer, short story writer, children's book writer, composer and painter from the Faroe Islands.