Halldór Laxness

Halldor Laxness was a renowned Icelandic novelist and essayist. As a young man he traveled extensively in Europe and America.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955 for his novel, Independent People, which has been hailed as one of the great novels of the 20th century. He wrote 50 books, including 20 collections of essays, 14 novels, eight plays, seven memoirs, and one volume of poetry, which he published in 1930. His novels have been translated into more than 30 languages, but few of his essays have been translated except for a few literary pieces in the Nordic languages.