Login
Forgot your password?

LONELYWRITER.net

GLOBAL NETWORK OF WRITERS

                               

 

     site search        

Free Audio Clip

Halldor Kiljan Laxness

Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature-1955

Nobel Committee in its citation stated that the prize was given for "for his vivid epic power, which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland. "

Born: 23/04/1902 in Reykjavik, Iceland

Died: 08/02/1998  in Reykjavik, Iceland

Citizen: Icelandic

Language: Icelandic

Influence: Lewis Sinclair, Ernest Hemingway, Sigmund Freud, August Strindberg

 Halldór Guđjónsson was born in Reykjavik, but soon the family moved to Laxens. a rural area about 15 km from the capital. Halldor spent the most memorable part of his early life there and subsequently changed his surname to Laxness in honor of the homestead land where he was raised.

    His first work was a novel,Children of Nature, which was published when Laxness was only 17.Then he went abroad and during that transit period, his second novel,Under the Holy Mountain was published in 1924. Halldor was an agnostic but later changed to a devout Catholic. Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír (The Great Weaver from Kashmir) was published in 1927 and it was hailed as a great masterpiece of German expressionism.

   In the mean time, his religious orientation was again undergoing transformation and he got attracted to socialism while touring USA. Laxness stayed in USA and attempted to write screen plays for Hollywood films in between 1927-1929.His socialistic fervor waned after Soviet Union took military action against Hungary in 1956.

    He used to write even in his eighties and only towards the end became immobilized due to Alzheimer's disease and died of old age.

    Notable Works: Barn náttúrunnar-Child of Nature(1919), Undir Helgahnúk - Under the Holy Mountain(1924), Heimsljós--Part I,World Light(1937), Heimsljós--Part-II,The Palace of the Summerland(1938), Íslandsklukkan --Part-I, Iceland's Bell (1943) , Atómstöđin--The Atom Station (1948),Brekkukotsannáll--The Fish Can Sing(1957),Paradísarheimt --Paradise Reclaimed(1960),Gerska ćfintýriđ--The Russian Adventure(1938)

Halldor Laxness

Order Halldor Laxness's Books below

 

 

 

 

Free E-Book

Writer Forum

Blog of the Day

---->  Guest Writer
 

ArticleToday

Literary Quiz

Prize HUB

SE ASIA voice

Call from Africa

Subscribe newsletter

upcoming Poet