"A beautifully crafted narrative about a turn of the nineteenth-century poet whose life on, and of, the land challenged him to hold to his roots in Iceland while yet wrestling with the vicissitudes of transplantation to the emerging cultures of North America. This book is as much about the transformative particulars of place as it is about the man whose extraordinary poetic record of them reveals a soul torn by alternating turmoil and peace."
- John H. Wadland, Professor Emeritus, Department of Canadian Studies, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario.
About the author:
Viðar Hreinsson, an independent literary scholar, grew up on a farm in the North of Iceland. A lecturer on various aspects of Icelandic literary and cultural history at universities in Iceland, Denmark, and Canada, he also acted as general editor of the acclaimed five-volume series The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, published in 1997. His two-volume biography of Icelandic-Canadian literary giant Stephan G. Stephansson was published in Icelandic in 2002 and 2003. Volume I was nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize in 2002 and the completed work received the 2003 Award for Excellence in Scholarly Writing.
An outspoken environmental and political activist and former Director of the Reykjavík Academy, Viðar Hreinsson has since written two biographies and worked on developing new and critical approaches to Icelandic literary and cultural history.
About Stephan G. Stephansson:
Comparative valuation may be premature and unprofitable, but it is quite possible that he will someday be acknowledged as the earliest poet of the first rank, writing in any language, to emerge in the national life of Canada."
ߝ Watson Kirconnell President, Acadia University "Canada's Leading Poet Stephan G. Stephansson" University of Toronto Quarterly Vol. V, No. 2, January 1936
Reviews:
"Yet the man who emerges from this portrait is complicated and real. Hreinsson's Stephansson is proud, questioning and sagacious—an Icelandic heir to Emerson, Whitman or Thoreau. ... A deferential, unsentimental portrait that ably captures Stephansson's life and legacy."
Kirkus Reviews www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/vidar-hreinsson/wakeful-nights/