 First edition cover | |
| Author | Jane Smiley |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | John Rush |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | March 12, 1988 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 558 |
| ISBN | 0-394-55120-6 |
| LC Class | PS3569.M39 G7 1988 |
The Greenlanders is a 1988 historical-fiction epic novel by American author Jane Smiley.
The novel gives a speculative account of the Norse inhabitation of Greenland in the 14th and 15th centuries, written in the style of an Icelandic or Norse saga.
The Greenlanders describes the daily affairs of Nordic settlers living in medieval southern Greenland, including marriages, births, deaths, famines, epidemics, trials at the Thing, church affairs, land feuds, seal hunts, military invasions, and encounters with Greenland's aboriginal inhabitants.
In particular, the book follows the lives of Gunnar Asgeirsson, an unlucky, violent, litigious man, and his sister, Margret Asgeirsdottir, a quiet, solitary, melancholic woman on their homestead in the Vatnahverfi district. Though the novel also follows the lives of many other Greenlanders, Gunnar and Margret function as the novel's protagonists. The novel also features several historically documented individuals and events in Greenland and elsewhere, including the spread of Islam into southern Europe, assaults on Greenlanders' settlements by English raiders, and the witchcraft trial of Kolgrim.
The Greenlanders was reviewed favorably. Kirkus Reviews called it a "bleak, stirring picture of the slow slouch towards the death of a civilization". [1] In a 2010 Time article, American author Jonathan Franzen included it in his list of influential books, [2] and in an interview with Big Think, Franzen said, "I do not know of a better American novel within the last twenty years" than The Greenlanders. [3]
Vinland, Vineland, or Winland was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Eriksson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The name appears in the Vinland Sagas, and describes Newfoundland and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence as far as northeastern New Brunswick. Much of the geographical content of the sagas corresponds to present-day knowledge of transatlantic travel and North America.
The history of Greenland is a history of life under extreme Arctic conditions: currently, an ice sheet covers about eighty percent of the island, restricting human activity largely to the coasts. The first humans are thought to have arrived in Greenland around 2500 BCE. Their descendants apparently died out and were succeeded by several other groups migrating from continental North America. There has been no evidence discovered that Greenland was known to Norsemen until the ninth century CE, when Norse Icelandic explorers settled on its southwestern coast. The ancestors of the Greenlandic Inuit who live there today appear to have migrated there later, around the year 1200, from northwestern Greenland.
Erik Thorvaldsson, known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer, described in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first European settlement in Greenland. Erik most likely earned the epithet "the Red" due to the color of his hair and beard. According to Icelandic sagas, Erik was born in the Jæren district of Rogaland, Norway, as the son of Thorvald Asvaldsson; to which Thorvald would later be banished from Norway, and would sail west to Iceland with Erik and his family. During Erik's life in Iceland, he married Þjódhild Jorundsdottir and would have four children, with one of Erik's sons being the well-known Icelandic explorer Leif Erikson. Around the year of 982, Erik was exiled from Iceland for three years, during which time he explored Greenland, eventually culminating in his founding of the first successful European settlement on the island. Erik would later die there around 1003 CE during a winter epidemic.
Jonathan Earl Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist". Franzen's latest novel Crossroads was published in 2021, and is the first in a projected trilogy.
The Norse exploration of North America began in the late 10th century, when Norsemen explored areas of the North Atlantic colonizing Greenland and creating a short term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland. This is known now as L'Anse aux Meadows where the remains of buildings were found in 1960 dating to approximately 1,000 years ago. This discovery helped reignite archaeological exploration for the Norse in the North Atlantic. This single settlement, located on the island of Newfoundland and not on the North American mainland, was abruptly abandoned.
Skræling is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the peoples they encountered in North America. In surviving sources, it is first applied to the Thule people, the proto-Inuit group with whom the Norse coexisted in Greenland after about the 13th century. In the sagas, it is also used for the peoples of the region known as Vinland whom the Norse encountered and fought during their expeditions there in the early 11th century.
Jane Smiley is an American novelist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992 for her novel A Thousand Acres (1991).
Grœnlendinga saga is one of the sagas of Icelanders. Like the Saga of Erik the Red, it is one of the two main sources on the Norse colonization of North America. The saga recounts events that purportedly happened around 1000 and is preserved only in the late 14th century Flateyjarbók manuscript.
Kolgrim, also spelled Kollgrim or Kolgrimr, was an alleged Norse sorcerer who was burned in Greenland for sorcery and adultery.
The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize is a literary prize created in 1988 by the newspaper The Chicago Tribune. It is awarded yearly in two categories: Fiction and Nonfiction. These prizes are awarded to books that "reinforce and perpetuate the values of heartland America."
Freedom is a 2010 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Freedom received general acclaim from book critics, was ranked one of the best books of 2010 by several publications, and called by some critics the "Great American Novel". In 2022, it was announced that Freedom would be adapted for television.
The Greenlandic Inuit are the indigenous and most populous ethnic group in Greenland. Most speak Greenlandic and consider themselves ethnically Greenlandic. People of Greenland are both citizens of Denmark and citizens of the European Union.
The Corrections is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-20th century to "one last Christmas" together near the turn of the millennium. The novel was awarded the National Book Award in 2001 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002.
Greenlandic independence is a political ambition of some political parties, advocacy groups, and individuals of Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, to become an independent sovereign state.
Helen "Nell" Louise Zink is an American writer living in Germany. After being a long term penpal of Avner Shats, she came to prominence in her fifties with the help of Jonathan Franzen and her novel, Mislaid, was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her debut The Wallcreeper was released in the United States by the independent press Dorothy and named one of 100 notable books of 2014 by The New York Times, as was Mislaid. Zink then released Nicotine, Private Novelist and Doxology through Ecco Press. In 2022 she published Avalon, again a New York Times notable book, with Alfred A. Knopf.
Herjolfsnes was a Norse settlement in Greenland, 50 km northwest of Cape Farewell. It was established by Herjolf Bardsson in the late 10th century and is believed to have lasted some 500 years. The fate of its inhabitants, along with all the other Norse Greenlanders, is unknown. The site is known today for having yielded remarkably well-preserved medieval garments, excavated by Danish archaeologist Poul Nörlund in 1921. Its name roughly translates as Herjolf's Point or Cape.
Purity is a novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. His fifth novel, it was published on September 1st, 2015 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Vatnahverfi was a district in the Norse Greenlanders’ Eastern Settlement (Eystribyggð) and is generally regarded by archaeologists and historians as having the best pastoral land in the colony. The Norse settled Vatnahverfi in the late 10th century and farmed there for nearly 500 years before mysteriously disappearing from the district and the entirety of Greenland, likely at some point in the latter 15th century. Its name is roughly translated as “Lake District."
Dexter Palmer is an American novelist and short story writer. His novels are notable for bringing a literary, character-driven sensibility to genres like steampunk, speculative fiction, and historical fiction, and to themes like time travel.
Claire Lombardo is an American writer. Her novel The Most Fun We Ever Had was a New York Times bestseller and was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.
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