Bøger af Halldór Laxness

Genudgivelse med forord af Kristin Marja Baldursdottir. Halldór Laxness modtog i 1955 Nobelprisen i litteratur og står i dag som det tyvende århundredes vigtigste islandske forfatter. Denne roman handler om Salka Valka, en af de største kvindeskikkelser i Laxness’ forfatterskab, der kæmper for at opnå et menneskeværdigt liv. Skal hun klare sig selv, må hun fornægte det almindelige kvindeliv og arbejde ved fiskeriet, som mændene …

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.

En af de største nordiske klassikere kommer med denne udgivelse i ny dansk oversættelse for første gang siden 1935. Frie folk af Halldór Laxness er stadig det mest elskede stykke islandske litteratur i verden næst efter sagaerne, det er en episk fortælling om en fattig bondes kamp for at opnå selvstændighed og frihed og om alt det, han må ofre for at kunne forfølge sit mål til den bitre ende. Bjartur Jónsson har i atten år arbejdet for egnens forhadte sognefoged på gården Útiraudsmýri, men har endelig sparet tilstrækkeligt med penge sammen til at købe sin egen gård. Han køber Vintergårde og omdøber den til Sommergårde, et lille husmandssted, der ligger på en jordlod, som efter sigende hjemsøges af en ondskabsfuld kvinde ved navn Gunnvör, der har indgået en pagt med djævlen Kolumkilli og nedkaldt en forbandelse over stedet. Men Bjartur er ikke overtroisk, og han flytter ind på gården med sin unge kone Rósa, fast besluttet på, at de skal klare sig selv og leve der som frie mennesker. Det går dog snart op for Bjartur, at Rósa er blevet gravid med sognefogedens søn, inden han selv giftede sig med hende, og da hun dør alene i barselssengen, står Bjartur tilbage med datteren Ásta Sóllilja og en gård, han skal passe alene. Frie folk handler om bøndernes liv og de trange kår, de levede under på Island i begyndelsen af 1900-tallet, og om hvordan første verdenskrig, grundlæggelsen af en andelsbevægelse og voksende kapitalistiske strømninger øver deres indflydelse på både levestandard og tankegang blandt bønderne. Kampen for at overleve er hård og ubarmhjertig, men Bjartur i Sommergårde nægter at give op, selvom det betyder, at han til sidst står alene tilbage, forarmet og uden den gård, han arbejdede så hårdt for at drive, men med en ny erkendelse af egen skrøbelighed og en deraf følgende vilje til denne gang at kæmpe for andre end sig selv. I 1955 vandt Halldór Laxness Nobelprisen i litteratur. Da prisen blev overrakt, var det med ordene ”Halldór Laxness får hermed Nobelprisen for sin levende episke prosa, der har genoplivet den store fortællekunst i Island. (…) I den islandske litteraturs historie kan han nævnes ved siden af Snorri Sturluson, forfatteren til Njals Saga, og hans plads i verdenslitteraturen er blandt forfattere som Cervantes, Zola, Tolstoj og Hamsun.”

"First published as Salka Valka in two volumes by Bâokadeild Menningarsjâoºs, Reyjavâik, 1931-1932"--Title page verso.

'Wildly original, morose, uproarious... It is also one of the funniest books ever written' Susan SontagA naive young man is sent by the bishop of Iceland to investigate a small town that has reportedly lost its faith. The church is boarded up and the errant pastor lives with a woman who is not his wife. He has also allowed a corpse to be lodged in the glacier. So the rumours go.What he discovers is a community that regards itself as the centre of the world - earthly yet otherworldly, banal yet astonishing. Brimming with humour, mystery, and the supernatural this is a surprising and moving novel from the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SUSAN SONTAG

A BRAND NEW TRANSLATION OF LAXNESS' TALE OF POVERTY AND GREEDSet at the start of the twentieth century in a fictional Icelandic fishing village, Salka Valka follows the struggles of a penniless woman, Sigurlina, and her daughter, Salka Valka.

In an epic set in Iceland in the early twentieth century, Gudbjartur Jonsson buys his own croft after eighteen years of service to the local bailiff, and brings his wife and his small flock of sheep there to build a new, independent life for himself.

Nobel laureate Halldor Laxness's Under the Glacier is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece, a wryly provocative novel at once earthy and otherworldly. At its outset, the Bishop of Iceland dispatches a young emissary to investigate certain charges against the pastor atSnfells Glacier, who, among other things, appears to have given up burying the dead. But once he arrives, the emissary finds that this dereliction counts only as a mild eccentricity in a community that regards itself as the center of the world and where Creation itself is a work in progress. What is the emissary to make, for example, of the boarded-up church? What about the mysterious building that has sprung up alongside it? Or the fact that Pastor Primus spends most of his time shoeing horses? Or that his wife, Ua (pronounced ';ooh-a,' which is what men invariably sputter upon seeing her), is rumored never to have bathed, eaten, or slept? Piling improbability on top of improbability, Under the Glacier overflows with comedy both wild and deadpan as it conjures a phantasmagoria as beguiling as it is profound.

Sometimes grim, sometimes uproarious, and always captivating, Icelands Bell by Nobel Laureate Halldr Laxness is at once an updating of the traditional Icelandic saga and a caustic social satire. At the close of the 17th century, Iceland is an oppressed Danish colony, suffering under extreme poverty, famine, and plague. A farmer and accused cord-thief named Jon Hreggvidsson makes a bawdy joke about the Danish king and soon after finds himself a fugitive charged with the murder of the kings hangman.In the years that follow, the hapless but resilient rogue Hreggvidsson becomes a pawn entangled in political and personal conflicts playing out on a far grander scale. Chief among these is the star-crossed love affair between Snaefridur, known as Icelands Sun, a beautiful, headstrong young noblewoman, and Arnas Arnaeus, the kings antiquarian, an aristocrat whose worldly manner conceals a fierce devotion to his downtrodden countrymen. As their personal struggle plays itself out on an international stage, Icelands Bell creates a Dickensian canvas of heroism and venality, violence and tragedy, charged with narrative enchantment on every page.

The Fish Can Sing is one of Nobel Prize winner Halldr Laxnesss most beloved novels, a poignant coming-of-age tale marked with his peculiar blend of light irony and dark humor.The orphan Alfgrimur has spent an idyllic childhood sheltered in the simple turf cottage of a generous and eccentric elderly couple. Alfgrimur dreams only of becoming a fisherman like his adoptive grandfather, until he meets Iceland's biggest celebrity. The opera singer Gardar Holms international fame is a source of tremendous pride to tiny, insecure Iceland, though no one there has ever heard him sing. A mysterious man who mostly avoids his homeland and repeatedly fails to perform for his adoring countrymen, Gardar takes a particular interest in Alfgrimurs budding musical talent and urges him to seek out the world beyond the one he knows and loves. But as Alfgrimur discovers that Gardar is not what he seems, he begins to confront the challenge of finding his own path without turning his back on where he came from.

Published in 1952, Wayward Heroes is part of the body of works for which Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1955. It is a masterfully written tragicomedy about the oath-brothers Thorgeir and Thormod, inspired by the old Icelandic sagas Saga of the Sworn Brothers and Saga of Saint Olaf. The brothers fight for glory, raid for treasure, and seduce women against the backdrop of a new cult of Christianity. But where the old sagas depict their heroes as glorious champions, Laxness does the opposite. As Thormod avenges Thorgeir's death, he demonstrates the senselessness of violence and the endlessly cyclical nature of obsession.

Bjartus is a sheep farmer determined to eke a living from a blighted patch of land. Nothing, not merciless weather, nor his family will come between him and his goal of financial independence. Only Asta Solillja, the child he brings up as his daughter, can pierce his stubborn heart.

Abandoned as a baby, Alfgrimur is content to spend his days as a fisherman living in the turf cottage outside Reykjavik with the elderly couple he calls grandmother and grandfather. But the narrow horizons of Alfgrimur's idyllic childhood are challenged when he starts school and meets Iceland's most famous singer, the mysterious Garoar Holm.

An idealistic Icelandic farmer journeys to Mormon Utah and back in search of paradise in this captivating novel by Nobel Prize-winner Halldor Laxness. The quixotic hero of this long-lost classic is Steinar of Hlidar, a generous but very poor man who lives peacefully on a tiny farm in nineteenth-century Iceland with his wife and two adoring young children. But when he impulsively offers his children's beloved pure-white pony to the visiting King of Denmark, he sets in motion a chain of disastrous events that leaves his family in ruins and himself at the other end of the earth, optimistically building a home for them among the devout polygamists in the Promised Land of Utah. By the time the broken family is reunited, Laxness has spun his trademark blend of compassion and comically brutal satire into a moving and spellbinding enchantment, composed equally of elements of fable and folkore and of the most humble truths.

When the Americans make an offer to buy land in Iceland to build a NATO airbase after the Second World War, a storm of protest is provoked throughout the country. Narrated by a country girl from the north, the novel follows her experiences after she takes up employment as a maid in the house of her Member of Parliament.

Salka Valka ankommer som 11-årig med sin ubemidlede mor til en lille islandsk flække, hvor de hutler sig igennem i fattige kår. Men Salka Valka er en oprører og kæmper sig frem til en position på lige fod med mændene. Vi følger hendes udvikling i den islandske bygd fra hendes barndomsår, hvor Frelsens Hær og fiskeriet dominerer, og hele samfundet styres af den rige købmand, og frem til hendes voksne år, hvor Salka Valka forsøger at finde sin plads i Islands barske natur mellem gammeldags fiskerikultur, religiøs sekterisme, den herskende kapitalisme og den frembrydende socialisme."Den islandske forfatter og nobelpristager Halldór Laxness brænder stadig igennem med uformindsket kraft. Hans roman Salka Valka er verdensklasse. Det er på samme tid indsigtsfuldt og nøgternt berettet, både glødende idealistisk og komplet resigneret. Det er en stor roman om kvinder og mænd, om klasseskel og revolutionsdrømme, om kærlighed og tab." – Lise Marstrand-Jørgensen, Berlingske Tidende, ******"Halldór Laxness' 1930'er-gennembrudsroman om furien Salka Valka står så vild, sexet og politisk skarp som nogensinde. Og Salka Valkas dannelseshistorie er på én gang illusionsløs og grænseoverskridende forankret i den udørk, der bliver hendes skæbne, og rollemodel til alle tider og for begge køn." – Jacob Levinsen, Jyllandsposten"Den islandske forfatter og nobelpristager Laxness skriver som en naturkraft. Udsat for Halldór Laxness' sorte humor og vågne øje for sjælens afkroge går ingen ram forbi: Hverken Gud eller Marx eller deres stedfortrædere her på jord ... Laxness' litterære status på Island er på højde med sagaerne. Og man forstår den status, når man læser Salka Valka." – Tina Maria Winther, Politiken"Den islandske forfatter Halldór Laxness' gennembrudsroman ejer stadig den dybeste fascinationskraft ... Store scenerier, store følelser. Kønslig og social indignation, erotik og natur, Frelsens Hær og klassekamp går op i en højluftet enhed. Salka Valka er et stort og enkelt brydetag med livet." – Liselotte Wiemer, Weekendavisen