Halldór Laxness

«Nada es tan inhumano como la vida humana».Después de dieciocho años de trabajo incansable, Bjartur consigue lo que tanto había ansiado: librarse de la servidumbre y tener al fin sus propias tierras

«Nada es tan inhumano como la vida humana».Después de dieciocho años de trabajo incansable, Bjartur consigue lo que tanto había ansiado: librarse de la servidumbre y tener al fin sus propias tierras

Ambientado en el siglo XVIII, La campana de Islandia es un relato concebido en forma de tríptico, que se desarrolla siguiendo las pautas de la mejor tradición épica de las sagas islandesas medievales. Islandia era por entonces una colonia danesa poblada en su mayor parte por campesinos y granjeros que vivian sumidos en la extrema pobreza. Uno de ellos, Jon Hreggvidsson, a causa de una temeridad tiene que enfrentarse con las autoridades islandesas, que obedecen directamente al monarca danes. El granjero es detenido pero se fuga con la intencion de viajar a Dinamarca a resolver el conflicto. Con La campana de Islandia, Laxness pretendio ensalzar el caracter genuino de su pais, de sus gentes, de su lengua y en general de una nacion que habia vivido durante siglos bajo el dominio danes y que se independizo totalmente durante la gestacion de la novela. Mas alla de lo exotica que la propuesta pueda parecer, esta obra es una muestra de alta literatura de uno de los mejores escritores nordicos del siglo XX.

A sort of Icelandic "Great Gatsby," this beloved gem of a coming-of-age novelis one of Nobel Prize-winning author Laxnesss most accessible. 12,500print. "The Fish Can Sing "is one of Nobel Prize winner Halldor Laxness''s most beloved novels, a poignant coming-of-age tale marked with his peculiar blend of light irony and dark humor. The orphan Alfgrimur has spent an idyllic childhood sheltered in the simple turf cottage of a generous and eccentric elderly couple. Alfgrimur dreams only of becoming a fisherman like his adoptive grandfather, until he meets Iceland''s biggest celebrity. The opera singer Gardar Holm''s international fame is a source of tremendous pride to tiny, insecure Iceland, though no one there has ever heard him sing. A mysterious man who mostly avoids his homeland and repeatedly fails to perform for his adoring countrymen, Gardar takes a particular interest in Alfgrimur''s budding musical talent and urges him to seek out the world beyond the one he knows and loves. But as Alfgrimur discovers that Gardar is not what he seems, he begins to confront the challenge of finding his own path without turning his back on where he came from.

La publicación, por primera vez en España, de Gente independiente recupera una de las voces más personales de la literatura europea del siglo XX, el islandés Halldór Laxness. Con una construcción equilibrada y solida que atrapa y conmueve, la novela narra la vida del campesino Bjartur de la Casa Estival, un destino guiado por la conviccion de que un hombre independiente es aquel dueño de la tierra que trabaja, y de que solo la obstinacion y el orgullo de poseerla le permitiran superar las adversidades. Una escritura luminosa que conserva ecos de las sagas medievales islandesas y que nos transmite sin sentimentalismos el amor y la cercania del autor a sus personajes. Una obra cuyos ecos resuenan, como el lector podra comprobar, en novelas europeas y americanas muy posteriores.

Delicioso divertimento literario que reúne todo un catálogo de personajes y de anécdotas cuyo denominador común es su relación con el protagonista: Alfgrimur es un muchacho que, abandonado por su madre al nacer, crece con su abuelo, Bjorn, un pescador que se niega a variar el precio del pescado ignorando la ley de la oferta y la demanda. En su casa, a las afueras de Reikiavik, conocera a una asombrosa coleccion de excentricos, desde capitanes de guardacostas hasta especialistas en fosas septicas. Laxness, haciendo recordar a Dickens, comienza su divertido collage de temperamentos, con este parrafo inolvidable: "Un sabio afirmo que, aparte de perder a su madre, para un niño no hay nada mas sano que perder a su padre. Aunque lejos de mi suscribir en su integridad estas palabras, lo cierto es que tambien seria el ultimo en rechazarlas de plano."

Parodie des grandes sagas classiques, La Saga des Fiers-à-bras est un chef-d’œuvre d’humeur noire, un roman du désenchantement empreint d’un pessimisme jovial, où Laxness élève les mésaventures de de

Escrito depois de Gente Independente, eis uma das obras mais marcantes de Halldór Laxness.Prémio Nobel de LiteraturaA infância do jovem Álfgrímur, abandonado pela mãe na quinta de Brekkukot, nos arre

Prémio Nobel de LiteraturaGente Independente, romance de Halldór Laxness, Prémio Nobel de Literatura, tem lugar na Islândia, no início do século xx, numa sociedade de servidão e num país com uma natu

Publicado em 1957, dois anos após Halldór Laxness receber o prêmio Nobel de literatura, Os peixes também sabem cantar conduz o leitor até as paisagens islandesas e os pequenos detalhes da vida cotidi

From the Nobel Prize winner comes a captivating novel about an idealistic Icelandic farmer who journeys to Mormon Utah and back in search of paradise. "Full of an earthy poetry...a style wonderfully wise and entirely Scandinavian in its combination of magic and reality." The New York Times Book Review With an introduction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres.The quixotic hero of this long-lost classic is Steinar of Hlidar, a generous but very poor man who lives peacefully on a tiny farm in nineteenth-century Iceland with his wife and two adoring young children. But when he impulsively offers his childrens beloved pure-white pony to the visiting King of Denmark, he sets in motion a chain of disastrous events that leaves his family in ruins and himself at the other end of the earth, optimistically building a home for them among the devout polygamists in the Promised Land of Utah. By the time the broken family is reunited, Laxness has spun his trademark blend of compassion and comically brutal satire into a moving and spellbinding enchantment, composed equally of elements of fable and folkore and of the most humble truths.

Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness’s Under the Glacier is aone-of-a-kind masterpiece, a wryly provocative novel at once earthy and otherworldly. At its outset, the Bishop of Iceland dispatches a youn

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 poets 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 this extraordinary novel, what might be cruel farce achieves pathos and genuine exaltation. For as Olafs ambition drives him onwardand into the orbits of an unstable spiritualist, a shady entrepreneur, and several susceptible womenWorld Light demonstrates how the creative spirit can survive in even the most crushing environment and even the most unpromising human vessel.

From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner: At the close of the 17th century, Iceland is an oppressed Danish colony, suffering under extreme poverty, famine, and plague. A farmer and accused cord-thief named Jon Hreggvidsson makes a bawdy joke about the Danish king and soon after finds himself a fugitive charged with the murder of the kings hangman.In the years that follow, the hapless but resilient rogue Hreggvidsson becomes a pawn entangled in political and personal conflicts playing out on a far grander scale. Chief among these is the star-crossed love affair between Snaefridur, known as Icelands Sun, a beautiful, headstrong young noblewoman, and Arnas Arnaeus, the kings antiquarian, an aristocrat whose worldly manner conceals a fierce devotion to his downtrodden countrymen. As their personal struggle plays itself out on an international stage, Laxness creates a Dickensian canvas of heroism and venality, violence and tragedy, charged with narrative enchantment on every page.Sometimes grim, sometimes uproarious, and always captivating, Icelands Ball is at once an updating of the traditional Icelandic saga and a caustic social satire.

Drawing on historical events, including King Olafs reign in Norway and the burning of Chartres Cathedral, Laxness revises and renews the bloody sagas of Icelandic tradition, producing not just a spectacular historical novel but one of coal-dark humor and psychological depth. Publishers Weekly First published in 1952, Halldor Laxnesss Wayward Heroes offers an unlikely representation of modern literature. A reworking of medieval Icelandic sagas, the novel is set against the backdrop of the medieval Norse world. Laxness satirizes the spirit of sagas, criticizing the global militarism and belligerent national posturing rampant in the postwar buildup to the Cold War. He does that through the novels main characters, the sworn brothers ormour Bessason and orgeir Havarsson, warriors who blindly pursue ideals that lead to the imposition of power through violent means. The two see the world around them only through a veil of heroic illusion: kings are fit either to be praised in poetry or toppled from their thrones, other men only to kill or be killed, women only to be mythic fantasies. Replete with irony, absurdity, and pathos, the novel more than anything takes on the character of tragedy, as the sworn brothers quest to live out their ideals inevitably leaves them empty-handed and ruined.

A new translation of Nobel Prize-winning author Halldór Laxnesss masterpieceLate 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 mothers tragic death, Salka grows into a fiercely independent-minded adult - cutting off her hair, educating herself and becoming an advocate for the towns working class. A coming-of-age story, a feminist tale, a lament for Icelands 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 plotDaily TelegraphTRANSLATED BY PHILIP ROUGHTON

Wildly original, morose, uproarious... It is also one of the funniest books ever writtenSusan SontagA 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