World Light (72 page)
Halldór Snorrason was a loyal follower of King Harald Sigurðsson of Norway—Harald
harðráði
(Hard-Ruler)—and is mentioned in several sagas. He was the son of Snorri
goði
, one of the most prominent Icelandic chieftains in the Saga Age.
Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir is the heroine of
Laxdœla Saga
, the story of the tragic love-triangle between Guðrún and her lover Kjartan Ólafsson and her husband Bolli
orleiksson.
Jómsborg was the name of a fortified military encampment on the Baltic coast, the home of the semi-legendary Jómsvikings in the tenth century. These professional mercenary warriors had a strict code of behavior: membership was limited to men between eighteen and fifty, no women were allowed in the camp, and no one could show fear or dissent. “Jómsborg” has been associated with the town of Wolin, near the mouth of the River Oder in Poland.
HALLDÓR LAXNESS
World Light
Halldór Laxness was born near Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1902. His first novel was published when he was seventeen. The undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction, and one of the outstanding novelists of the century, he has written more than sixty books, including novels, short stories, essays, poems, plays, and memoirs. In 1955 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1998.
Also by HALLDÓR LAXNESS
Independent People
Paradise Reclaimed
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, OCTOBER 2002
Copyright © 1969 by the Regents of the University of Wisconsin
Introduction copyright © 2002 by Sven Birkerts
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Halldór Laxness, 1902–1998
World light/Halldór Laxness; translated from the Icelandic
by Magnus Magnusson.
[Heimsljós. English]
p. cm.
PT7511.L3 H413 2002
839’.6934—dc21
2002024994
eISBN: 978-0-307-43031-1
v3.0
