Independent People

Set in the early decades of the twentieth century, Independent People is a masterly realist novel evoking in rich detail a family and a rural community struggling to survive in the starkest of landscapes. At the same time it is infused with an intense awareness of Iceland's saga tradition and folklore. Bjartur of Summerhouses is a hard and sometimes cruel man, but his flinty determination to achieve independence is both genuinely heroic and bleakly comic. Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude before managing to purchase an isolated piece of land rumoured to be cursed, Bjartur wants nothing more than to tend his flocks unbeholden to any man. But his daughter wants to live unbeholden to him, and what ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail.
An utterly compelling read.

About the author

Halldór Laxness

Summary

Set in the early decades of the twentieth century, Independent People is a masterly realist novel evoking in rich detail a family and a rural community struggling to survive in the starkest of landscapes.

Product details

• Authors: Halldór Laxness, Halldor Laxness
• Assisted by: John Freeman (Introduction)
• Publisher: Everyman's Library UK
• Content: Book
• Product form: Hardback
• Publication date: 30.09.2020
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature
• EAN: 9781841593975
• ISBN: 978-1-84159-397-5
• Dimensions (packing): 13.5 x 21 x 1.5 cm
• Series: Everyman's Library CLASSICS; Everyman’s Library Contemporary Classics
• Subjects: FICTION / Family Life / General, Historical fiction, FICTION / Classics, Contemporary, Iceland, Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary, independent people, historical non-fiction, independent people; historical non-fiction; top ten non-fiction; top 10 non-fiction; contemporary; the family plot; comedians autobiographies; comedy non-fiction; viking non-fiction, the family plot, comedy non-fiction, top 10 non-fiction, top ten non-fiction, comedians autobiographies, viking non-fiction