From the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author: a magnificent novel that recalls Iceland's medieval epics and classics, set in the early twentieth century starring an ordinary sheep farmer and his heroic determination to achieve independence. • "A strange story, vibrant and alive…. There is a rare beauty in its telling." —Atlantic MonthlyIf Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to free himself...

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 mee...

Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness’s Under the Glacier is aone-of-a-kind masterpiece, a wryly provocative novel at once earthy and otherworldly. At its outset, the Bishop of Iceland dispatches a young emissary to investigate certain charges against the pastor at Snæfells Glacier, who, among other things, appears to have given up burying the dead.But once he arrives, the emissary finds that this dereliction counts only as a mild eccentricity in a community that...

“Drawing on historical events, including King Olaf’s reign in Norway and the burning of Chartres Cathedral, Laxness revises and renews the bloody sagas of Icelandic tradition, producing not just a spectacular historical novel but one of coal-dark humor and psychological depth.” – Publishers WeeklyFirst published in 1952, Halldór Laxness’s Wayward Heroes offers an unlikely representation of modern literature. A reworking of medieval Icelandic sagas...

From the Nobel Prize winner comes a captivating novel about an idealistic Icelandic farmer who journeys to Mormon Utah and back in search of paradise. • "Full of an earthy poetry...a style wonderfully wise and entirely Scandinavian in its combination of magic and reality." —The New York Times Book Review • With an introduction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres.The quixotic hero of this long-lost classic is Steinar o...

From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner: At the close of the 17th century, Iceland is an oppressed Danish colony, suffering under extreme poverty, famine, and plague. A farmer and accused cord-thief named Jon Hreggvidsson makes a bawdy joke about the Danish king and soon after finds himself a fugitive charged with the murder of the king’s hangman.In the years that follow, the hapless but resilient rogue Hreggvidsson becomes a pawn entangled in political and personal ...

A magnificently humane novel from the acclaimed Icelandic Nobel Prize winner: as an unloved foster child on a farm in rural Iceland, Olaf Karason has only one consolation, the belief that one day he will be a great poet.The indifference and contempt of most of the people around him only reinforces his sense of destiny, for in Iceland poets are as likely to be scorned as they are to be revered. Over the ensuing years, Olaf comes to lead the paradigmatic poet’s life ...

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • A “masterly” (The New York Times, Editors’ Choice), “riveting” (The Atlantic) novel of friendship, family, and the unthinkable realities of exile, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Return“A profound celebration of the sustaining power of friendship, of the ways we mold ourselves against the indentations of those few people whom fate presses against us.”—

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “gripping” (The Washington Post) account of how the major transformations in history—from the rise of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism—have been shaped not by humans but by germs“Superbly written . . . Kennedy seamlessly weaves together scientific and historical research, and his confident authorial voice is sure to please readers of Yuval Noah Harari or Rutger Bregman.”—The Times (U.K.)...

WINNER OF THE 2022 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE"A triumph of literature."—Financial Times"Echoes of James Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende and Leo Tolstoy. . . . An enchanting ride."—BookPage"A breath of fresh air."—GuardianA playful, feminist, and utterly original epic of Indian literature in translation, set in contemporary northern India, about a family and the inimitable oc...

The chilling dystopian novel that influenced George Orwell while he was writing 1984, with a new introduction by Margaret Atwood and an essay by Ursula Le GuinIn a glass-enclosed city of perfectly straight lines, ruled over by an all-powerful “Benefactor,” the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState are regulated by spies and secret police; wear identical clothing; and are distinguished only by a number assigned to them at birth. That is, until D-...

**Named a Wall Street Journal and Washington Post Top 10 Book of 2025Named a Best Book of the Year by Vulture, Marie Claire and Vanity Fair"I loved RUTH."—Lorde“It would never work out, but I’m in love with Ruth.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post“A wonderful, loving, tenderly teasing and often moving portrait … [a] standout.”—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal“There are inklings of greatness ...