Author Description

"HAUNTING."--The New York Times Book ReviewJane Smiley, the Pultizer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres, gives us a magnificent novel of fourteenth-century Greenland. Rich with fascinating detail about the day-to-day joys and innumerable hardships of remarkable people, The Greenlanders is also the compelling story of one family--proud landowner Asgeir Gunnarsson; his daughter Margret, whose willful independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile; and his son Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling center of this unforgettable book. Echoing the simple power of the old Norse sagas, here is a novel that brings a remote civilization to life and shows how it was very like our own."TOTALLY COMPELLING... FASCINATING... In the manner of the big books of the nineteenth century, in which complex family and community matters unravel--Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy--The Greenlanders sweeps the reader along.... Jane Smiley is a true storyteller."--The Washington Post"A POWERFUL, MOVING STUDY OF HUMAN FRAILTY AND THE EPHEMERAL NATURE OF COURAGE AND LOVE."--USA Today"WONDERFUL... A HISTORICAL NOVEL WITH THE NEARNESS OF CONTEMPORARY FICTION."--The New Republic"[AN] EPIC MASTERPIECE... SPELLBINDING."--Newsday