World Light
A magnificently humane novel from the acclaimed Icelandic Nobel Prize winner: as an unloved foster child on a farm in rural Iceland, Olaf Karason has only one consolation, the belief that one day he will be a great poet.
The indifference and contempt of most of the people around him only reinforces his sense of destiny, for in Iceland poets are as likely to be scorned as they are to be revered. Over the ensuing years, Olaf comes to lead the paradigmatic poet’s life of poverty, loneliness, ruinous love affairs and sexual scandal. But he will never attain anything like greatness.
As imagined by Nobel Prize winner Halldor Laxness in…
Halldor Laxness was born near Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1902. His first novel was published when he was 17. The undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction and one of the most outstanding novelists of the century, Laxness wrote more than 60 books, including novels, short stories, essays, poems, plays, and memoirs. In 1955 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Laxness died in Iceland in 1998.
Independent People
Halldor Laxness; Introduction by John Freeman
The Fish Can Sing
Halldor Laxness Introduction by Jane Smiley; translated by Magnus Magnusson
Under the Glacier
Haldor Laxness Translated by Magnus Magnusson
Iceland's Bell
Halldor Laxness Translated by Philip Roughton
World Light
Halldor Laxness Translated by Magnus Magnusson, With a New Introduction by Sven Birkerts
Paradise Reclaimed
Halldor Laxness Introduction by Jane Smiley