Independent People (Vintage International)

Independent People (Vintage International)

<p><b>From the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author, a magnificent, epic novel-"funny, clever, sardonic and brilliant" (Annie Proulx)-at last available to contemporary American readers.</b><br><br>Set in the early twentieth century, <i>Independent People</i> recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's <i>Kristin Lavransdatter</i>. If Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.<br><br>Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to <i>him</i>. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, <i>Independent People</i> is a masterpiece.</p>