Book description
When the Americans make an offer to buy land in Iceland to build a
NATO airbase after World War II, a storm of protest is provoked
throughout the country. The airbase provides Laxness with the catalyst
for his astonishing and powerful satire. 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.
Marvelling at the customs and behaviour of the people around her, she
emerges as the one obstinate reality in a world of unreality. Her
observations and experiences expose the bourgeois society of the south
as rootless and shallow and in stark contrast to the age-old culture
of the solid and less fanciful north.
A witty and moving satire on politics and politicians, Communists
and anti-Communists, phoney culture fiends, big business and all the
pretensions of authority, Laxness' masterpiece of social commentary is
as relevant today as when it was written in 1948.
HALLDÃ R LAXNESS (1902-98) was born near ReykjavÃk, Iceland. His
first novel was published when he was 17. The undisputed master of
contemporary Icelandic fiction and one of the outstanding novelists of
the twentieth century, his work was translated into more than 30
languages. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955.
