My Parents: Memoirs of New World Icelanders

My Parents: Memoirs of New World Icelanders is a collection of essays written by second-generation Icelandic immigrants in North America. Originally collected in 1956 by Dr. Finnbogi Gudmundsson, the first Chair of Icelandic at the University of Manitoba, seven of the original fourteen essays are translated here from Icelandic to English, offering a rare first-hand look into the lives of New World immigrants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Readers are invited straight into the heart of these people's lives, from social evenings spent reading poetry and the sagas, to the daily struggles to prepare the land and build homes. A prevailing sense of community emerges from the writers' stories, showing how Icelandic culture and tradition sustained the immigrants through hardship, illness, and isolation. My Parents also provides a fascinating look at the genealogy of the New World Icelanders that settled in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Minnesota.Bjarnadottir, Birna is the author of 'My Parents: Memoirs of New World Icelanders', published 2007 under ISBN 9780887556999 and ISBN 088755699X.