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Icelandic
Vintage Books
15 October 2002
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 greatness.

As imagined by Nobel Prize winner Halldor Laxness in this magnificently humane novel, what might be cruel farce achieves pathos and genuine exaltation. World Light demonstrates how the creative spirit can survive in even the most crushing environment and even the most unpromising human vessel.
By:  
Translated by:  
Imprint:   Vintage Books
Country of Publication:   United States
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Height: 202mm,  Width: 133mm,  Spine: 28mm
Weight:   437g
ISBN:   9780375727573
ISBN 10:   0375727574
Series:   Vintage International
Pages:   624
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  ELT Advanced ,  Primary
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Hallad r Laxness was born near Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1902. His first novel was published when he wsa 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.

Reviews for World Light

""[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


  • Winner of Nobel Prize 1955

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