The Fish Can Sing - Paperback

by Halldor Laxness (Author), Jane Smiley (Introduction by)

One of the most beloved novels from the Nobel Prize winner, a poignant coming-of-age tale marked with the peculiar Icelandic blend of light irony and dark humor. - With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres.

The orphan Alfgrimur has spent an idyllic childhood sheltered in the simple turf cottage of a generous and eccentric elderly couple. Alfgrimur dreams only of becoming a fisherman like his adoptive grandfather, until he meets Iceland's biggest celebrity. The opera singer Gardar Holm's international fame is a source of tremendous pride to tiny, insecure Iceland, though no one there has ever heard him sing.

Author Biography

HALLDOR LAXNESS was born near Reykjavik, 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 wrote more than sixty books, including novels, short stories, essays, poems, plays, and memoirs. In 1955 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Laxness died in Iceland in 1998.