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  • Published: 1 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446485354
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 192

The Atom Station




'Laxness has been hailed as Iceland's John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair combined. His is a significant voice in world literature' Magnus Magnusson

When the Americans make an offer to buy land in Iceland to build a NATO airbase after the Second World War, a storm of protest is provoked throughout the country. Narrated by a country girl from the north, the novel follows her experiences after she takes up employment as a maid in the house of her Member of Parliament. Her observations and experiences expose the bourgeois society of the south as rootless and shallow and in stark contrast to the age-old culture of the solid and less fanciful north.

'The Atom Station is the work of someone who has seen every cherished dream sold down the river, but who loves humanity too much to despair. His heroine refuses to be bullied or bought, a feminist before her time, full of curiosity and spirit' Guardian

  • Published: 1 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446485354
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 192

About the author

Halldor Laxness

Halldór Laxness (Author)
Halldór Laxness (1908 - 98) was born near Reykjavik, Iceland. His first novel was published when he was seventeen. The undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction and one of the outstanding novelists of the twentieth-century, he wrote more than sixty books. Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955.

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Praise for The Atom Station

[Laxness’] voice has a very funny peculiar, refreshing and intriguing mix of comic irony and metaphysical angst

Marina Warner, Observer

The Atom Station is the work of someone who has seen every cherished dream sold down the river, but who loves humanity too much to despair. His heroine refuses to be bullied or bought, a feminist before her time, full of curiosity and spirit

Michael Faber, Guardian

Laxness is a poet who writes to the edges of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot.

Daily Telegraph

An extraordinary book, brimming with little wisdoms, funny episodes, sharp phrases...and a determined optimism of spirit

The Times

Laxness was a genius

New York Review of Books

Magnus Magnusson's translation reads smoothly and skilfully renders Laxness's dry and quirky wit

Times Literary Supplement

Above all else the writing of Laxness is beautiful. His countryman's eye finds wonder everywhere in the landscape

Sunday Tribune

Above all else the writing of Laxness is beautiful. His countryman's eye finds wonder everywhere in the landscape

Sunday Tribune

An extraordinary book, brimming with little wisdoms, funny episodes, sharp phrases...and a determined optimism of spirit

The Times

Laxness is a poet who writes to the edges of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot.

Daily Telegraph

Laxness was a genius

New York Review of Books

Magnus Magnusson's translation reads smoothly and skilfully renders Laxness's dry and quirky wit

Times Literary Supplement