Fish Can Sing

Halldór Laxness, Magnus Magnusson

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Icelandic

Harvill
28 September 2001

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

A story about growing up, full of the strangeness, humour and beauty of Iceland
*BY THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
*

'Laxness at his best- a reminder of the mad hilarity of the Icelandic sensibility. An endearing and unforgettable voice' Nicholas Shakespeare

Abandoned as a baby, Alfgrimur is content to spend his days as a fisherman living in the turf cottage outside Reykjavik with the elderly couple he calls grandmother and grandfather. There he shares the mid-loft with a motley bunch of eccentrics and philosophers who find refuge in the simple respect for their fellow men that is the ethos at the Brekkukot. But the narrow horizons of Alfgrimur's idyllic childhood are challenged when he starts school and meets Iceland's most famous singer, the mysterious Garoar Holm. Garoar encourages him to aim for the 'one true note', but how can he attain it without leaving behind the world that he loves?

'It is a novel (a world) that transmits something of the wonder of life' Murray Bail

By: Halldór Laxness
Translated by: Magnus Magnusson
Imprint: Harvill
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 199mm, Width: 130mm, Spine: 17mm
Weight: 188g
ISBN: 9781860469343
ISBN 10: 1860469345
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 28 September 2001
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Halldor Laxness was born near Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1902. He died in 1998. The undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955.

Reviews for Fish Can Sing

A welcome reissue of the 1955 Nobel laureate's 1957 novel about an abandoned boy's embattled growth to manhood in an Icelandic village, complicated by his kinship with generations of fisherfolk and his fixation on an internationally famous opera singer. This lively bildungsroman - which dramatizes with considerable variety and humor the ideal of community and the phenomenon of a backward country's mixed feelings toward the outside world and progress - is enriched by a bountiful gallery of sharply drawn eccentric characters. Altogether, one of this great writer's most unusual and attractive books. (Kirkus Reviews)