World Light by Halldor Laxness - ISBN: 9780375727573
Paperback
Icelandic poet dreams of greatness amidst poverty and scorn.

$34.63

  • Paperback

    624 pages

  • Release Date

    15 October 2002

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Summary

As an unloved foster child on a farm in rural Iceland, Olaf Karason has only one consolation—the belief that one day he will be a great poet. The indifference and contempt of most of the people around him only reinforces his sense of destiny, for in Iceland poets are as likely to be scorned as they are to be revered. Over the ensuing years, Olaf comes to lead the paradigmatic poet’s life of poverty, loneliness, ruinous love affairs, and sexual scandal. But he will never attain anything like g…

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780375727573
ISBN-10:0375727574
Author:Halldor Laxness
Publisher:Random House USA Inc
Imprint:Vintage Books
Format:Paperback
Number of Pages:624
Release Date:15 October 2002
Weight:442g
Dimensions:202mm x 132mm x 28mm
Series:Vintage International
What They're Saying

Critics Review

”[Laxness is] a poet who writes to the edge of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot: He takes a Tolstoyan overview, he weaves in an Evelyn Waugh-like humor: it is not possible to be unimpressed.” – Daily Telegraph (London)“[An author of] compassionate, scathing novels.” –Annie Dillard, The New York Times Book Review ”[Laxness is] a poet who writes to the edge of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot: He takes a Tolstoyan overview, he weaves in an Evelyn Waugh-like humor: it is not possible to be unimpressed.” – Daily Telegraph (London) “Laxness is a brilliant writer.” –The Washington Post

About The Author

Halldor Laxness

Hallad r Laxness was born near Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1902. His first novel was published when he was seventeen. The undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction, and one of the outstanding novelists of the century, he has written more than sixty books, including novels, short stories, essays, poems, plays, and memoirs. In 1955 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1998.

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