KVARAN, EINAR HJRLEIFSSON

born Dec. 6, 1859, Vallanes, Ice. died May 21, 1938, Reykjavk Icelandic journalist, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and poet. A clergyman's son, Kvaran studied at the University of Copenhagen and there joined a group of young Icelandic radicals. He went to Winnipeg, Man., in 1885 and for 10 years was a leading journalist and editor in the Icelandic immigrant community there. He spent the rest of his life as a journalist and writer in Reykjavk. Kvaran had popular success. He expressed the contemporary longing for political independence, a better social structure, and better education. In Canada he had been converted to spiritualism, and he spent the rest of his life espousing it. Kvaran was a journalist until 1906 and from 1910 was subsidized as a writer by a government grant. His novels were often written to a thesis and were peopled with characters who were little more than vehicles for various ideas. His masterly short stories show him at his best.