Tuesday 15 October 2013

Iceland's love affair with literature

Interesting article on the BBC News website about Iceland's current book boom. Apparently, 1 in 10 Icelanders will publish a book, and more importantly, sales of books are on the increase too.

Of course, it is a country with a very strong literary tradition. During the few days I spent there earlier this year, our guide twice urged me to read various 20th century Icelandic books, while the medieval sagas were a constant presence wherever we went. Quite whether that has any implications for Britain I've no idea, but there did seem to be less of a tendency to separate literature into different genres, or to talk in terms of high and low culture.

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