In Atómstöthin (1948) he deplored the demoralization caused by World War II in Iceland from a communistic and nationalistic point of view, and in Gerpla (1952 Happy Warriors), he satirized the warlike spirit common to the Viking Age and our modern times. In the historical trilogy composed of Íslandsklukkan (1943 'The Bell of Iceland'), Hithljósa man (1944 'Bright Maiden'), and Eldur íi Kaupinhafn (1946 'Fire in Copenhagen'), Laxness immortalized the stubbornness, pride, and love of learning that have been the mainstays of the Icelandic people through many centuries of distress. , 1936), a portrayal of the independent village girl Sjalfstatt folk (1934-1935 Independent People, 1946), which depicts the stubbornly heroic small crofter and the four-volume work Ólafur Ljósvíkingur (1937-1940 World Light, 1969), the story of a long-suffering poet of the people. This new approach is manifest in three novels: Salka Valka (1931-1932 English trans. Writing under the pseudonym Halldor Laxness, he penned “fiction depicting the hard living conditions of the lower classes.”Many of his later writings continued to reflect political, religious, and social themes.Īfter three years in the United States, Laxness returned to a study of his people from a leftist point of view. On the subject of his conversion into Catholicism, he wrote the great introspective novel Vefarinn mikli fra Kasmir (1927 The Great Weaver of Cashmere, 1927), the expressionistic, surrealistic manner of this work marking an important turning point in Icelandic prose style. After making his debut at 16 with a novel on the neo-Romantic back-to-nature theme, Laxness soon embarked on travels in Scandinavia and Germany. In his late teens, Laxness wrote his first novel, Barn Natturunnar (“A Child of Nature”).

Íslandsklukkan by Halldór Laxness