The author described Salka Valka as being about ‘how a poor individual in a little village lives and dies with the trading company on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other’

A BRAND NEW TRANSLATION OF LAXNESS’ TALE OF POVERTY AND GREED

Set at the start of the twentieth century in a fictional Icelandic fishing village, Salka Valka follows the struggles of a penniless woman, Sigurlina, and her daughter, Salka Valka. They must eke out an existence in a small, isolated world where everyone is controlled by a single wealthy merchant, and where everything in life revolves around fish.

Follow Salka’s development from a precocious child to a fiercely independent-minded adult. Her romantic spirit is challenged when she starts a relationship with a firebrand idealist, Arnaldur. His fights against the trading company for human rights reflect the contemporary clash of social ideals in Iceland.