Independent People - Halldor Laxness

n nFrom the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author, a magnificent, epic novel--funny, clever, sardonic and brilliant (Annie Proulx)--at last available to contemporary American readers. n nSet in the early twentieth century, Independent People recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. If Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.

n nHaving spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail.

Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is a masterpiece.n