The Fish Can Sing is a 1957 novel by Icelandic author Halldór Laxness

Halldór Laxness

Halldór Kiljan Laxness was a twentieth-century Icelandic writer. Throughout his career Laxness wrote poetry, newspaper articles, plays, travelogues, short stories, and novels...

, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature

Nobel Prize in Literature

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

 in 1955.

Plot summary

The novel is set at the start of the twentieth century and deals with the orphaned boy Álfgrímur, his adoptive grandparents, and the small, tolerant community of misfits and eccentrics they gather around them at Brekkukot, their cottage on the outskirts of Reykjavík

Reykjavík

Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...

. As Álfgrímur begins to encounter the minor politicians, businessmen and social-climbers of the growing town of Reykjavík he starts to question his future as a fisherman's grandson, and is increasingly fascinated by Garðar Hólm, the celebrated Icelandic "world singer" whose sporadic returns to Iceland encourage Álfgrímur to pursue his own personal goals of self-expression. He discovers the true value of his boyhood experiences only as he sets out on a path that will take him away from them forever.
The boy's name, Álfgrímur, is explained in the book as a compound of Álf (elf) and grímur (a poetic word for 'night') meaning 'he who spends the night with the elves'. The original name of the book in Icelandic is 'Brekkukotsannáll' (Annals of Brekkukot).