The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2008, Side 13

Vol. 62 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
The Blacklisting of Halldor Laxness
by Chay Lemoine
Icelandic Nobel Prize winning writer
Halldor Laxness was blacklisted by the
policies of the United States government
during the infamous “red scare” period of
American history, using the same fear and
intimidation that threatened to ruin the
careers of Hollywood screenwriters such
as Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner, Jr. and
American novelist Howard Fast.
Recently declassified FBI documents
show that J. Edgar Hoover and the State
Department of the United States govern-
ment authorized an investigation of
Halldor Laxness which resulted in publish-
ers refusing to publish the works of the
Icelandic writer. These investigations and
later inquires were also aimed at ruining the
reputation of the writer in the eyes of the
reading public both in Iceland and in the
United States. The United States State
Department ruined the literary career in
English of Halldor Laxness during the late
forties and early fifties and prevented him
from having continued success in the
United States.
Independent People has been acknowl-
edged as one of the great novels of the
twentieth century. In celebration of its sev-
enty-fifth anniversary in 2002, World
Literature Today, a respected literary jour-
nal published at the University of
Oklahoma, selected a list of the forty most
important novels of the last seventy-five
years. Independent People is on that list as
well as on numerous other lists compiled
by academic organizations, respected mag-
azines and newspapers.
When the novel was resurrected in
English through the efforts of novelist and
academic Brad Leithauser it had been out
of print for almost fifty years. Vintage
International’s reissue of the English trans-
lation in January 1997 sold well which
resulted in the reissuing in English of six
Laxness novels that were previously in
translation but were also out of print.
When Independent People was pub-
lished in English in the United States in
1946, the book was a major best-seller. It
was a Book-of-the-Month selection selling
nearly 450,000 copies. Certainly Laxness’
publishers would be looking for a way to
quickly follow up with another book now
that the American reading public had an
interest in the new writer. Salka Vallta had
been translated by F. H. Lyon and pub-
lished in England in 1936. There could have
been a quick reissue of this novel until
translators could complete work on World
Light or Iceland’s Bell two Laxness novels
that had already been published in his
native Iceland. There was no follow up to
Independent People. Even after Halldor
Laxness won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1955, Independent People was
not reissued even in a limited edition.
In a front-page article in the New York
Times, on Friday, October 28th, 1955, it
was announced that Icelandic novelist
Halldor Laxness had won the highest liter-
ary honour in the world. The article
focused most of its comments not on
Laxness’ literary merits but on his past
political associations. He was portrayed as
rich, hypocritical, anti-American and left-
ist. The article states “informed sources
said the Swedish Academy, some of whose
members disapprove of Mr. Laxness’ polit-
ical views, decided to award him the prize
this year only because of the relaxation of
East-West tensions.” When Boris
Pasternak won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in Oct 24 1958, the New York
Times headline read “Nonconformist
Russian.” The fact that Pasternak’s novels
were not allowed to be published in his
native communist Russia contributed to
the glowing account of his life. The article
placed Pasternak in a pastoral setting,
“spade in hand, digging in his vegetable