Shelf of Halldor Laxness books next to a vase, with red Vintage Classics spines showing and Salka Valka standing upright to display cover.

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Reading lists

Where to start reading Halldór Laxness

The Atom Station

The Atom Station is the work of someone who has seen every cherished dream sold down the river, but who loves humanity too much to despair. His heroine refuses to be bullied or bought, a feminist before her time, full of curiosity and spirit

Laxness is a poet who writes to the edges of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot.

An extraordinary book, brimming with little wisdoms, funny episodes, sharp phrases...and a determined optimism of spirit

Magnus Magnusson's translation reads smoothly and skilfully renders Laxness's dry and quirky wit

Above all else the writing of Laxness is beautiful. His countryman's eye finds wonder everywhere in the landscape

Halldór Laxness (1908-98) was born near Reykjavik, Iceland. His first novel was published when he was seventeen. The undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction and one of the outstanding novelists of the twentieth-century, he wrote more than sixty books. Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955.

When the Americans make an offer to buy land in Iceland to build a NATO airbase after the Second World War, a storm of protest is provoked throughout the country. Narrated by a country girl from the north, the novel follows her experiences after she takes up employment as a maid in the house of her Member of Parliament. Her observations and experiences expose the bourgeois society of the south as rootless and shallow and in stark contrast to the age-old culture of the solid and less fanciful north. 
 
'The Atom Station is the work of someone who has seen every cherished dream sold down the river, but who loves humanity too much to despair. His heroine refuses to be bullied or bought, a feminist before her time, full of curiosity and spirit' Guardian

Independent People

The greatest Icelandic novel and surely one of the best books of the 20th century... I read it as a teenager and it had a life-lasting effect

Hallgrímur Helgason, author of 101 Reykjavik

Laxness is a poet who writes to the edge of the pages, a visionary who allows a plot: he takes a Tolstoyan overview, he weaves in an Evelyn Waugh-like humour: It is not possible to be unimpressed

Marvellously fluent and unaffected... one of the most original and skilfully written novels of the 20th century

There are good books and there are great books and there may be a book that is something still more: it is the book of your life

Do yourself a favour and read Independent People. Opening this book is like opening a chest of treasures. Reading this book is like taking the treasures out and appreciating them, savouring them, one by one, sentence by sentence. This is the kind of novel that reminds you how glad you are that you learned to read in the first place

To read him is to discover an extra tastebud. He creates a world that belongs in another dimension, like the landscape of his country - familiar, strange, seen as in a dream... an endearing and unforgettable voice

Marvellously fluent and unaffected...one of the most original and skilfully written novels of the 20th century.

The great Icelandic novel written by a Nobel prize-winner, this is a magnificent portrait of the eerie Icelandic landscape and one man's dogged struggle for independence. 
 
‘In Iceland it’s the canon, but to me it’s a cult classic’ Zadie Smith 
 
‘I defy anyone to finish Halldór Laxness's Independent People without wetting the pages with tears’ Jonathan Franzen 
 
‘Favourite book? Independent People… I love it’ Ann Patchett 
 
Bjartur is a sheep farmer determined to eke a living from a blighted patch of land in rural Iceland. Nothing, not merciless weather, nor his family, will come between him and his goal of financial independence. Only Asta Sollilja, the child he brings up as his daughter, can pierce his stubborn heart. As she grows up, keen to make her own way in the world, Bjartus's obstinacy threatens to estrange them forever. 
 
‘A masterpiece’ David Mitchell 
‘It moved me immensely’ Barbara Kingsolver 
‘One of the great novels’ Ian McEwan 
‘Funny, clever, sardonic and brilliant’ Annie Proulx 
‘A great Icelandic novel…It’s an epic’ Max Porter 
‘An amazing book… A stunning piece of work’ Cillian Murphy 
'Laxness is a magnificent writer' Salman Rushdie 
'Laxness’ contribution to both Icelandic and world literature cannot be overstated' Andrey Kurkov

Fish Can Sing

Laxness is a poet who writes to the edge of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot: he takes a Tolstoyan overview, he weaves in an Evelyn Waugh-like humour: it is not possible to be unimpressed

This weird and wonderful novel, about the price you pay for 'the one true note', is Laxness at his best: a reminder of the mad hilarity of the Icelandic sensibility. An endearing and unforgettable voice

It is a novel (a world) that transmits something of the wonder of life, its strangeness, its goodness, ocassions for stubbornness, and the stoicism of people - people everywhere

Laxness's view of a child's bounded universe has humour and a light touch

*BY THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE* 
 
'Laxness at his best: a reminder of the mad hilarity of the Icelandic sensibility. An endearing and unforgettable voice' Nicholas Shakespeare 
 
Abandoned as a baby, Alfgrimur is content to spend his days as a fisherman living in the turf cottage outside Reykjavik with the elderly couple he calls grandmother and grandfather. There he shares the mid-loft with a motley bunch of eccentrics and philosophers who find refuge in the simple respect for their fellow men that is the ethos at the Brekkukot. But the narrow horizons of Alfgrimur's idyllic childhood are challenged when he starts school and meets Iceland's most famous singer, the mysterious Garoar Holm. Garoar encourages him to aim for the 'one true note', but how can he attain it without leaving behind the world that he loves? 
 
'It is a novel (a world) that transmits something of the wonder of life' Murray Bail

Salka Valka

Sprinkled throughout is Icelandic folk wisdom, dark humor, fatalism and a strong sense of the absurd... A tremendous book

Laxness is a poet who writes to the edges of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot

Halldór Laxness (Author) Halldór Laxness (1908-98) was born near Reykjavik, Iceland. His first novel was published when he was seventeen. The undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction and one of the outstanding novelists of the twentieth-century, he wrote more than sixty books. Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955. Philip Roughton (Translator) Philip Roughton was born in the US and now lives in Iceland. He is an award-winning translator of modern Icelandic literature, having translated works by numerous Icelandic writers, including the Nobel prize-winning author Halldór Laxness.

A new translation of Nobel Prize-winning author Halldór Laxness's masterpiece 
 
Late one snowy midwinter night, in a remote Icelandic fishing village, a penniless woman arrives by boat. She comes with her daughter, the young but gutsy Salka Valka. The two must forge a life in this remote place, where everyone is at the mercy of a single wealthy merchant, and where everything revolves around fish. 
 
After her mother's tragic death, Salka grows into a fiercely independent-minded adult - cutting off her hair, educating herself and becoming an advocate for the town's working class. A coming-of-age story, a feminist tale, a lament for Iceland's poor - this is the funny, tender, epic story of Salka Valka. 
 
'Laxness is a poet who writes to the edges of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot' Daily Telegraph 
 
TRANSLATED BY PHILIP ROUGHTON

Under the Glacier

This is a novel of immense charm... It's a book of ideas, like no other Laxness ever wrote

Under the Glacier is hilarious, in a deadpan, northern-edge-of-the-world sort of way

Whimsical... deliriously funny... impishly chaotic

Under the Glacier is a journey to the center of Laxness's antic imagination, and it is well worth the trip

'Wildly original, morose, uproarious... It is also one of the funniest books ever written' Susan Sontag 
 
A naive young man is sent by the bishop of Iceland to investigate a small town that has reportedly lost its faith. The church is boarded up and the errant pastor lives with a woman who is not his wife. He has also allowed a corpse to be lodged in the glacier. So the rumours go. 
 
What he discovers is a community that regards itself as the centre of the world - earthly yet otherworldly, banal yet astonishing. Brimming with humour, mystery, and the supernatural this is a surprising and moving novel from the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author. 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SUSAN SONTAG

Halldór Laxness

Philip Roughton

An intimate, magical novel about one enduring church in a rural Icelandic valley - an ode to a quiet way of life now lost to time forever 
 
The resting place of legendary Viking warrior Egil Skallagrímsson’s skull, Mosfell Church is a lonely, country church, fated to be destroyed. But as the plans to destroy it take shape, stories, myth and folklore abound in one magical last attempt to leave Mosfell standing. 
 
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Halldór Laxness

Books by Halldór Laxness

Articles featuring Halldór Laxness

Where to start reading Halldór Laxness

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