Description

The great Icelandic novel by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Halldor Laxness

‘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’ New York Review of Books

First published in 1946, this is a humane, epic novel set in rural Iceland. Bjartus is a sheep farmer determined to eke a living from a blighted patch of land. Nothing, not merciless weather, nor his family, will come between him and his goal of financial independence. Only Asta Solillja, 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.

Written by the Nobel prize-winner dubbed the ‘Tolstoy of the North’, this is a magnificent portrait of the eerie Icelandic landscape and one man’s dogged struggle for independence.

‘I defy anyone to finish Halldor Laxness’s Independent People without wetting the pages with tears’ Jonathan Franzen, Guardian

‘The greatest Icelandic novel and surely one of the best books of the 20th century’ Hallgrimur Helgason, Guardian

Publisher Review

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 -- Hallgrimur Helgason, author of 101 Reykjavik * Guardian * 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 * Daily Telegraph * Marvellously fluent and unaffected... one of the most original and skilfully written novels of the 20th century * Times Literary Supplement * 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 * New York Review of Books * 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 * Chicago Tribune *