Independent People
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Independent People (Sjálfstætt fólk) is an epic novel by Halldor Laxness, published 1934-35. Subjects are poor Icelandic farmers, only freed from debt bondage in the last generation, and surviving the late 1800s/early 1900s, on a croft in the middle of nowhere in inhospitable countryside.
An indictment of materialism, the human relationship costs of the 'independent spirit', and perhaps capitalism itself. It helped propel Laxness to win the Nobel prize for literature in 1955.