Independent People

“Reader rejoice! At last this funny, clever, sardonic and brilliant book is back in print. Independent People is one of my Top Ten Favourite Books of All Time.” —Annie Proulx

“There are good books and there are great books and there may be a book that is something still more: it is the book of your life. . . . My favorite book by a living novelist is Independent People.” —Brad Leithauser

“This beautiful and heartbreaking novel has haunted me ever since I was lent a rare copy years ago, and I am delighted that what is clearly a masterpiece by a relatively uncelebrated genius will now be available to a wide audience of book lovers. If there is any justice in the world, the name Laxness will soon become a household word, at least in those households where timeless works of the imagination are cherished.” —Joel Conarroe

“Laxness has a poet’s imagination and a poet’s gift for phrase and symbol. . . . Bjartur is a magnificent and complex symbol of peasant independence.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A strange story, vibrant and alive. . . . There is a rare beauty in its telling, a beauty as surprising as the authentic strain of poetry that lies in the shoving, battering Icelander.” —Atlantic Monthly

“A saga that somehow contrives to recapture the broad, clear air of older Icelandic tales.” —The Observer (London)

“[Laxness] gives a large picture of life under primitive conditions, [he] writes vividly, using irony with vigorous effect; amid the brutality and squalor there are rich moments of humor and poetry.” —The Spectator (London)