Salka Valka by Halldór Laxness: Philip Roughton & Doug Mcintyre

See a Nordic Literature in Translation panel with translator Philip Roughton & Doug McIntyre on celebrated Icelandic novelist and Nobel Prize Laureate Halldór Laxness’s novel "Salka Valka," out June 7 in new translation from Archipelago! On a winter night, an 11-year-old Salvör and her unmarried mother Sigurlína disembark at the remote, run-down fishing village of Óseyri, where life is “lived in fish and consists of fish.” The two struggle to make their way amidst the rough, salt-worn men of the town. After Sigurlína’s untimely death, Salvör pays for her funeral and walks home alone, precipitating her coming of age as a daring, strong-willed young woman who chops off her hair, earns her own wages, educates herself through political and philosophical texts, and soon becomes an advocate for the town’s working class, organizing a local chapter of the seamen’s union. A feminist coming-of-age tale, an elegy to the plight of the working class and the corrosive effects of social and economic inequality, and a poetic window into the arrival of modernity in a tiny industrial town, "Salka Valka" is a novel of epic proportions, living and breathing with its vibrant cast of characters, filled with tenderness, humor, and remarkable pathos. Learn more about programs from Scandinavia House at www.scandinaviahouse.org Learn more about ASF Translation Prizes at www.amscan.org/fellowships-grants #HalldorLaxness #norlit #icelandliterature