Independent People by the Icelandic Nobel prizewinning author Halldór Laxness is a jewel among mid-20th century European novels. It doesn’t bear the intellectual stature of a Thomas Mann or a Robert Musil, for it is closer in feeling and sentiment to one of the great Thomas Hardys. Except that it is set in the harsh, tough agricultural environment of early 20th-century rural Iceland and charts the life and family of one Bjartur, a sheep farmer with aspirations.

Growing up in extreme poverty as a shepherd, Bjartur has a deeply felt ambition to become a farmer in his own right, however hard the road, however challenging the decisions he has to make along the way. Fate throws storms of all kinds in his path, from natural upheavals which, however, terrible, he can take in his stride to political changes which he is less able to understand and confront. We are with him every step of the way, understanding his choices, sympathising with what he has to face; and with his young wife Rósa and her baby girl, Ásta Sóllilja whom he accepts as family.

There is the background of folk legends, of spirits that inhabit this wild land. There is heightened personal emotion, subsumed by tragedy, encompassed by commercial demands of a growing business and the pressures of everyday life. Once experienced, Independent People is never forgotten. John Telfer’s compassionate reading brings it to life.