A Beginner’s Guide To Laxness: One US-Based Writer’s Take

Want to deepen your relationship with Icelandic literature in English translation but don’t know where to start? We’ve asked US-based professor of literature, Jenna Grace Sciuto, what she’d suggest, starting with the classics of the one-and-only Nobel Laureate, Halldór Laxness. Spending her summers in Iceland writing and researching with her collaborator at the University of Iceland, Jenna has a new book on intersections between US Southern and Icelandic literature that just hit the shelves, so she has lots of fresh thoughts on this matter.

Which Halldór Laxness novel to start with?

If you have heard of or read any one Icelandic writer, there is a decent chance it is Halldór Laxness (1902-1998). Born Halldór Guðjónsson in Reykjavík, before his family moved to Laxnes farm, from which he drew his pen name, Halldór was a prolific writer of novels, poetry, essays, plays, newspaper articles, among other genres, and the winner of 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. Halldór briefly lived in the US in the late 1920s and attempted to break into Hollywood as a writer of screenplays (as did fellow Nobel Laureate, William Faulkner, whose work is also essential to my research). But which novel should you start with? Independent People is, of course, his classic with its richly descriptive portrait of a stubborn sheep farmer, Bjartur of Summerhouses. It is a novel of epic proportions, fascinating character dynamics, and a strong sense of rural life in early 20th-century Iceland. However, at over 500 pages, it is not for the faint of heart and might prove a challenging entry point for the less-than-motivated. I have met Americans living in Iceland whose journey with Icelandic literature remains at a standstill, with Independent People perpetually on their nightstand and that bookmark just not advancing!

If you self-identify as this less-than-motivated category, I might save Independent People for a later read and start with The Atom Station (translated by Magnús Magnússon, 1961): it’s significantly shorter at about 200 pages and described as Halldór’s Cold War novel. The underlying critique of US interference in Iceland makes it a particularly interesting read for Americans, among others. The backdrop involves the 1946 treaty concerning the US military base in Keflavík, referred to as “sell[ing] the country.” The Atom Station remains one of my favourites for its strong-willed heroine Ugla, who comes from the North to be the maid for a politician’s family in Reykjavik. Also led by a strong female protagonist, Salka Valka (translated by Philip Roughton, 2022), my other favourite by Halldór, is a coming-of-age novel, focusing on life in a small Icelandic fishing village. Salka herself is a literary icon, beloved character, and role model for generations of Icelandic girls and women, as I’ve been told by my Icelandic friends. Positioned as a peculiar, young tomboy, I’m continually intrigued by the ways that she defies gendered expectations. She notoriously wears pants throughout her life and becomes a leader in her community, despite the poverty and familial infamy that shaped her childhood.

This is the first in a four-part guide to Icelandic literature available in English translations. In the next issue: Reading beyond Halldór Laxness.

Jenna Grace Sciuto is a professor of Global Anglophone Literature at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.