Arnfríður Jónatansdóttir grew up in Reykjavík and is the only Icelandic woman to belong to the Atom Poets, a group of innovative poets from the capital city who became active in the middle of the twentieth century and liberated the form and themes of lyric poetry.
Her sole poetry collection Þröskuldur hússins er Þjöl, 1958, stood out on account of its imagery and allusions to folk-songs and tales incorporated into a modernist text. After her poems were published, she disappeared from the literary scene; however, her remarkable writing became a subject of 1990s debate.