These energetic persons became widely read, especially in Icelandic literature, and wrote extensively under difficult circumstances:—in fact all the modern authors represented in the present book may be said to have been prolific as writers. Guðmundur Friðjónsson was equally versatile as a writer of short stories and poems. He has a rich command of imagery and diction, and his style, at times a little pompous, is often powerful though slightly archaic in flavour. The ancient heroic literature doubtless fostered his manly ideas, which, however, sprang from his own experience in life. One must, he felt, be hard on oneself, and on one's guard against the vanity of newfangled ideas and against the enervating effect of civilization. It is in the nature of things that with this farmer and father of a family of twelve, assiduity, prudence, and self- discipline should be among the highest virtues. This is notably apparent in The Old Hay (Gamla heyið), which he wrote in 1909, and which was published in Tólf sögur (Twelve stories) in 1915.
Jón Trausti (pseudonym of Guðmundur Magnússon) is best known as the author of novels and short stories on contemporary and historical themes, but he also wrote plays and poems. He was endowed with fertile creative powers and the ability to draw vivid sketches of environment and character. At times, however, he lacks restraint, especially in his longer novels. Still, his principal work, The Mountain Cot (Heiðarbýlið)—one of the longest cycles in Icelandic fiction—is his greatest. The little outlying mountain cot becomes a separate world in its own right, a coign of vantage affording a clear view of the surrounding countryside where we get profound insight into human nature. Like the bulk of his best work, this novel has a foundation in his own experiences. In reading the story by him included in this volume, the reader may find it helpful to bear in mind Trausti's early life as a fisherman. What he attempts to show us there is a kind of inner reality—an offset to reality. When I was on the Frigate (Þegar eg var á fregátunni) first published in Skírnir for 1910.
Jón Trausti and Einar H. Kvaran—who between them form an interesting contrast—were the most prolific novelists at the beginning of the present century. By that time prose was becoming an increasingly important part of Icelandic literature. It would be more or less true to say that in the first thirty years of the century it had gained an equal footing with poetry. For the last thirty years, however, prose has taken first place, after poetry had constituted the backbone of Icelandic literature for six hundred years, or since the end of saga-writing.
But there were several writers who felt that the small reading public at home in Iceland gave them too little scope. So they emigrated, mostly to Denmark, and in the early decades of the century began to write in foreign languages, though the majority continued simultaneously to write in the vernacular. Pioneers in this field were the dramatist Johann Sigurjónsson (1880-1919), and the novelist Gunnar Gunnarsson (b. 1889). Both of these wrote in Danish as well as in Icelandic. Early in the second decade of the century three of this overseas group produced works that were accorded immediate acclaim, and which have since become classics, being widely translated into foreign languages. These were Eyvind of the Hills (Fjalla-Eyvindur) by Johann Sigurjonsson; The Borg Family (Borgaraettin, in English Guest the One-eyed) by Gunnar Gunnarsson; and Nonni, Erlebnisse eines jungen Isländers, the first of the famous children's books by the Jesuit monk Jón Sveinsson (Jon Svensson, 1857-1944). With these works modern Icelandic literature won for the first time a place for itself among the living contemporary literatures of the world. Since then, Iceland's contribution has been steady, not only in the works of those who wrote in foreign languages, but equally—and during the last couple of decades exclusively—in vernacular writing. In fact, with the return to his native country of Gunnar Gunnarsson in 1939, the vogue of writing in foreign languages virtually came to an end.
On his arrival in Iceland Gunnarsson had settled in his native east- country district though he afterwards moved to Reykjavík, where he now lives. Indeed he possesses many of the best qualities of the gentleman-farmer—firmness, tenacity of purpose, and a craving for freedom in his domain,—combined with a writer's imaginative and narrative powers and understanding of humanity. He often describes human determination and man's struggle with destiny, especially in his historical novels, which are set in most periods of Icelandic history. More moving, perhaps, are his novels on contemporary themes. The greatest among these is the cycle The Church on the Mountain (Fjallkirkjan; of the five novels making up this sequence, three have been translated into English under two titles, Ships in the Sky and The Night and the Dream). This is one of the major works of Icelandic literature—containing a fascinating world of fancy, invention, and reality. It is the story of the development of a writer who leaves home in order to seek the world. One of the best known stories in all Icelandic literature is his masterly short novel Advent or The good Shepherd (Aðventa).—Father and Sam Feðgarnir) was first published in the periodical Eimreiðin in 1916. The present version, with slight changes, is that found in the author's collected works, Rit XI, 1951.
Most Icelandic writers have, of course, written in the vernacular only, in spite of longer or shorter stay abroad. This applies to the last two authors represented here, both of whom appeared on the literary scene about 1920.
Guðmundur G. Hagalín (b. 1898) comes from the sea-girt Western Fiords, where he was a fisherman before attending secondary school. Later, he lectured on Iceland in Norway for a few years (1924-27), and is now a superintendent of public libraries. His home is in the neighbourhood of Reykjavík. In his novels, and more particularly in his short stories, he is at his best in his portrayals of the simple sturdy seamen and countryfolk of his native region, which are often refreshingly arch in manner. Hagalín, who is a talented narrator, frequently succeeds in catching the living speech and characteristic mode of expression of his characters. The Fox Skin (Tófuskinnið) first appeared in 1923, in one of his collections of short stories (Strandbúar).—He has also been successful as a recorder and editor of the biographies of greatly different people, based on first-hand accounts of their own lives. He is at present continuing with the writing of his autobiography—a long and interesting work.
Halldór Kiljan Laxness was born in 1902 in Reykjavík. Shortly afterwards his parents established themselves on a farm in the neighbourhood where he was brought up, and where he has now built himself a home. He is a patriot and, at the same time, a cosmopolitan who has probably travelled more extensively abroad than any other of his fellow-countrymen. After becoming a Catholic at the age of twenty, he spent a year in monasteries abroad, but had already begun to waver in his Catholicism when he first visited America, where he stayed from 1927 to 1930. During those years he became more and more radical in his social beliefs. Already in his first year there, he wrote the short story New Iceland (Nýja Ísland), which was immediately published in Heimskringla, an Icelandic weekly in Winnipeg. The story thus dates from an early period, when his art was in process of great development.
Indeed, the nineteen twenties saw important changes in our literature. The last of the great nineteenth century poets were vanishing from the literary scene, their places being taken by others, whose poetry, though hardly as profound and lofty in conception, was more lyrical and simple in manner, with greater delicacy and refinement of form. Especially in the prose-writing of the period, there were signs of flourishing growth. Gunnar Gunnarsson wrote The Church on the Mountain, and Laxness was becoming known. In the early thirties he appears as a fully mature writer in Salka Valka, a political love story from a fishing village, and Independent People (Sjálfstaett fólk), a heroic novel about the stubbornness and the lot of the Icelandic mountain farmer, both of which have appeared in English translations. Laxness has devoted less attention to the writing of plays and poetry than novels and short stories. Two among his greatest works are the novel sequences The Light of the World (Heimsljós)—about a poet-genius who never reaches maturity—, and The Bell of Iceland (Íslandsklukkan), a historical novel describing a political, cultural and human struggle. On the whole, the subject-matter of his stories is extremely varied, equally as regards time, place and human types. However, the greatest variety will probably be found in his style, which he constantly adapts to suit the subject. Behind all this lies a fertile creativeness which rarely leaves the reader untouched. No matter where in the wide world his stories may be set, they always stand in some relation to his people—though, at the same time, he usually succeeds in endowing them with universal values shared by common humanity. To achieve this has from early on been Laxness' aim; thus the first printed version of New Iceland contains the sub-heading: "An international proletarian story."
When this introduction was being written, a new novel by him, Heaven Reclaimed (Paradísarheimt) was published (1960), which, like his early short story, is set partly in America—this time among the Icelandic Mormons of Utah. Here, the man who goes out across half the world in quest of the millennium is in the end led back to his origins.