An unloved foster child in rural Icleand is convinced he will be a great poet. Over the years, he comes to lead a life of poverty, loneliness, ruinous love affairs.. but he will never attain greatness. --As imagined by Nobel Prize winner Laxness in this magnificently humane novel, what might be cruel farce achieves pathos and exaltation. As his hero's ambition drives him onward, "World Light" demonstrates how the creative spirit can survive in even the most crushing environment.--