Høll summarlandsins
Halldór Laxness completed his major work, Ljós heimsins (World light) as a four-part novel between 1937 and 1940.
The first volume, Ljómur guddómsins (The Revelation of the Deity), is already available in Faroese, and here comes the second volume, Høll summarlandsins (The Palace of the Summerland).
The second volume is a continuation of the story about Ólavur Kárason, the poor, forsaken child from Ljósvík, and his great affection for nature; the birds, the flowers in the field, and the lapping of the waves on the beach. An unloved child, who’s been dealt a rotten hand in life.
His parents are somewhere, but he does not know them. He dreams of them, and he misses them. The picture is dim and distant.
He is raised as a foster child on a farm, where he is mocked and ridiculed, but he endures with the help of his longing for beauty in life and his yearning to create and shine. Every day, he is overburdened with work, bullied and insulted, and his fragile body only just survives. His only comfort is his desire to create and his love for all that lives and grows.
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The books about Ólavur Kárason have been translated into many languages, and, perhaps most notably, they landed Laxness the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955, placing him among the world’s most renowned and pioneering writers.