"Under the Glacier" by Halldor Laxness [Icelandic Literature]
In addition to featuring various Icelandic tunes this week, I also want to highlight a number of works of Icelandic literature that are available in English translation. And since Halldor Laxness is Iceland’s one and only Nobel Prize winner, he seems like the perfect author to start with. Laxness was born in 1902 and ...
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Best Translated Book 2008 Longlist: The Great Weaver from Kashmir by Halldor Laxness
For the next several weeks we’ll be highlighting a book-a-day from the 25-title Best Translated Book of 2008 fiction longlist, leading up to the announcement of the 10 finalists. Click here for all previous write-ups. The Great Weaver from Kashmir by Halldor Laxness, translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton. ...
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Latest Review: The Great Weaver from Kashmir
It seems fitting that we run this review of Iceland’s only Nobel Prize winner right after the Le Clezio announcement, and while Bragi Olafsson (our Icelandic author) is on his reading tour. Larissa Kyzer—who reviewed The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo for us last month—wrote this review of the first Halldor ...
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The Great Weaver from Kashmir
If the international community recognizes Iceland for something other than Björk, vikings, and glaciers, it is undeniably the country’s historic and richly diverse literary tradition. Deemed by the Swedish Academy to be the “cradle of narrative art here in the North,” Iceland not only has the legacy of the ...
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Halldor Laxness in L.A. Times
On the occasion of the rerelease of The Fish Can Sing, Richard Raynor’s monthly Paperback Writers column features a nice overview of Iceland’s best-known writer, Halldor Laxness: This 1957 novel is narrated by the orphan Alfgrimur Hansson, who tells, in a meandering way, of his relationship with the ...
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