Sindri studied Literary and Philosophy at the University of Iceland, and later worked as a journalist. He started writing early, and was still a teenager when his his short stories and poems began to appear in newspapers and magazines. His first book was published in 1992 and attracted a lot of attention. His first novel, Augun í bænum (The Eyes in the Town) received the Halldór Laxness Literary Prize in 1998, and his second book of poetry, Harði kjarninn (The Hard Core) was nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize.