Independent People: An Epic (Icelandic: Sjálfstætt fólk) is a novel by Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness, originally published in two volumes in 1934 and 1935.

It deals with the struggle of poor Icelandic farmers in the early 20th century, only freed from debt bondage in the last generation, and surviving on isolated crofts in an inhospitable landscape.

As the story begins, Bjartur ("bright" or "fair") has recently managed to put down the first payment on his own farm, after eighteen years working as a shepherd at Útirauðsmýri, the home of the well-to-do local bailiff, a man he detests.

The land that he buys is said to be cursed by Saint Columba, referred to as "the fiend Kolumkilli",[3] and haunted by an evil woman named Gunnvör, who made a pact with Kólumkilli.

Bjartur is newly married to a young woman called Rósa, a fellow worker at Rauðsmýri, and is determined that they should live as independent people.

Terrified by a storm one night, desperate for meat, and convinced that the gimmer is possessed by the devil, Rósa kills and eats the animal.

When he cannot find her when it comes time to put the sheep inside for the winter, he once more leaves his wife, by now heavily pregnant, to search the mountains for the gimmer.

With help from Rauðsmýri, the child survives; Bjartur decides to raise her as his daughter, and names her Ásta Sóllilja ("beloved sun lily").

In the middle of the novel, World War I commences and the prices for Icelandic mutton and wool soar, so that even the poorest farmers begin to dream of relief from their poverty.

Independent People also reveals Laxness's anti-war leanings in a chapter that depicts Icelandic farmers sitting around talking about the economic benefits of the Great War.

In contrast to Laxness' bleak view of rural life in Iceland, Hulda presents a somewhat idealized picture of the old manorlike farmsteads.

[5] In her review of the 1997 Vintage International reissue of the English translation of the novel, Annie Dillard wrote, "The greatest Scandinavians' work shows opposing strains of lyricism and naturalism...