Halldór Kiljan Laxness (Icelandic: [ˈhaltour ˈcʰɪljan ˈlaxsnɛs] ; born Halldór Guðjónsson; 23 April 1902 – 8 February 1998) was an Icelandic writer and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote novels, poetry, newspaper articles, essays, plays, travelogues and short stories. Writers who influenced Laxness include August Strindberg, Sigmund Freud, Knut Hamsun, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, Bertolt Brecht, and Ernest Hemingway.
Halldór Guðjónsson was born in Reykjavík in 1902. When he was three, his family moved to the Laxnes farm in Mosfellssveit parish. He was brought up and enormously influenced by his grandmother, Guðný Klængsdóttir, who "sang me ancient songs before I could talk, told me stories from heathen times and sang me cradle songs from the Catholic era". He started to read books and write stories at an early age and attended the technical school in Reykjavík from 1915 to 1916. His earliest published writings appeared in 1916 in Morgunblaðið and in the children's periodical Æskan. The same year, two letters-to-the-editor Halldór wrote also appeared in the North American-Icelandic children's newspapers Sólskin, which was published in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Laxness then attended and in 1918 graduated from the Reykjavík Lyceum. By the time his first novel, Barn náttúrunnar (Child of Nature, 1919), was published he had already begun his travels on the European continent.
In 1922, Halldór moved into and considered joining the Abbaye Saint-Maurice et Saint-Maur in Clervaux, Luxembourg, where the monks followed the rules of Saint Benedict of Nursia. In 1923 he was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church, adopting the surname Laxness after the homestead on which he was raised and adding the name Kiljan (the Icelandic name of Irish martyr Saint Killian); Laxness practiced self-study, read books, and studied French, Latin, theology and philosophy. He became a member of a group that prayed for reversion of the Nordic countries to Catholicism. Laxness wrote of his experiences in the essay Kaþólsk viðhorf (1925) and published (in fragmentary form) the novel Undir Helgahnúk (1924, revised 1967). In 1927, he published Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír, a novel about a young man's conflicts with religion and identity in his quest to become "the most perfect person in the world". Icelandic critic Kristján Albertsson wrote of it:
Finally, finally, a grand novel which towers like a cliff above the flatland of contemporary Icelandic poetry and fiction! Iceland has gained a new literary giant—it is our duty to celebrate the fact with joy!
Laxness's religious period did not last long. He lived in the United States from 1927 to 1929, giving lectures on Iceland and attempting to write screenplays for Hollywood films. During this time he became attracted to socialism:
[Laxness] did not become a socialist in America from studying manuals of socialism but from watching the starving unemployed in the parks.
Laxness joined the socialist bandwagon... with a book Alþýðubókin (The Book of the People, 1929) of brilliant burlesque and satirical essays
Beside the fundamental idea of socialism, the strong sense of Icelandic individuality is also the sustaining element in Alþýðubókin. The two elements are entwined together in characteristic fashion and in their very union give the work its individual character.
In 1929 Laxness published an article critical of the U.S. in Heimskringla, a Canadian newspaper. This resulted in charges against him, his detention, and the forfeiture of his passport. With the aid of Upton Sinclair and the ACLU, the charges were dropped and Laxness returned to Iceland.
By the 1930s Laxness "had become the apostle of the younger generation" of Icelandic writers.
Salka Valka (1931–32) began the great series of sociological novels, often coloured with socialist ideas, continuing almost without a break for nearly twenty years. This was probably the most brilliant period of his career, and it is the one which produced those of his works that have become most famous. But Laxness never attached himself permanently to a particular dogma. In addition to the two parts of Salka Valka, Laxness published Fótatak manna (Steps of Men) in 1933, a collection of short stories, as well as other essays, notably Dagleið á fjöllum (A Day's Journey in the Mountains) in 1937.
Laxness's next novel was Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1934 and 1935), which has been called "one of the best books of the twentieth century."
When Salka Valka was published in English in 1936 a reviewer at the Evening Standard wrote: "No beauty is allowed to exist as ornamentation in its own right in these pages; but the work is replete from cover to cover with the beauty of its perfection."
In 1937 Laxness wrote the poem Maístjarnan (The May Star), which was set to music by Jón Ásgeirsson and became a socialist anthem.
This was followed by the four-part novel Heimsljós (World Light, 1937, 1938, 1939, and 1940), which is loosely based on the life of Magnús Hjaltason Magnusson, a minor Icelandic poet of the late 19th century. It has been "consistently regarded by many critics as his most important work."
Laxness also traveled to the Soviet Union in 1938 and wrote approvingly of the Soviet system and culture. He was present at the "Trial of the Twenty-one" and wrote about it in detail in his book Gerska ævintýrið (The Russian Adventure).
In the late 1930s Laxness developed a unique spelling system that was closer to pronunciation than standard Icelandic. This characteristic of his writing is lost in translation.
In 1941 Laxness translated Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms into Icelandic, which caused controversy because of his use of neologisms. He continued to court controversy over the next few years through the publication of new editions of several Icelandic sagas using modern Icelandic rather than the Old Norse orthography that had become customary. Laxness and his publishing partners were taken to court after the publication of his edition of Hrafnkels saga in 1942. They were found guilty of violating a recent copyright law, but eventually acquitted when the copyright law was deemed a violation of the freedom of the press.