Gunnar Gunnarsson

Born May 18, 1889, in Val-thjófsstadur. Icelandic author.

Gunnarsson, who writes in both Icelandic and Danish, is a representative of neoromanticism in Icelandic literature. At age 18, Gunnarsson went to Denmark (he returned to Iceland in 1939). In Denmark he published his first novel, The History of a Family From Borg (1912–14). During World War I (1914–18), Gunnarsson tried to save his faith in “goodness” and “humanity” by turning to abstract morality (the novels The Outcast, 1916, and Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit, 1920). The theme of the five-volume autobiographical novel The Church on the Mountain (1923–28) is the simple life that is close to nature and is the only defense against the contradictions of the age. Gunnarsson is the author of a cycle of novels on historical themes, including The Sworn Brothers (1918), The Black Bird (1929), Jón Arason (1930), Vikivaki (1932), The Grief of the Wilderness (1940), and Requiem Mass (1952). In 1954 he wrote Sonata of the Sea, a psychological story about fishermen.