Answer
The American novelist Ernest Hemingway was a major influence on Halldór Laxness. Hemingway's writing style, which emphasized simplicity and directness, appealed to Laxness, who was trying to create a new kind of Icelandic literature that was free of the influence of European Romanticism. Laxness also admired Hemingway's portrayal of the individual's struggle against nature and society, a theme that was also central to his own work.