Halldor Laxness

(1902-1998) is the undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction and considered one of the greatest European novelists of the twentieth century. Born near Reykjavik in Iceland on 23 April 1902, Halldór Laxness began writing at a young age: his first novel was published when he was just seventeen. A prolific author, he went on to write over 60 more books before his death in 1998. His body of work includes novels, essays, poems, plays, stories, and memoirs: more than sixty books in all. His works available in English include Independent People, The Fish Can Sing, Salka Valka, World Light, Under the Glacier, Iceland's Bell, Wayward Heroes, The Great Weaver From Kashmir,  Atom Station and Paradise Reclaimed. Laxness was one of the outstanding novelists of the 20th Century, described as ‘a visionary’ by the Daily Telegraph and ‘a genius’ by the New York Review of Books. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955 ‘for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland’.