Literacy in Iceland

For a people that come from a land of isolation, history is important. The tales of your people, your family, become your connection, your pride, your story. They become the way to unite and strengthen the ties of a small tribe, a provision of hope, honor, dignity and aplomb, in the face of hardships and autonomy. The mortar of a civilization. When this  connection to the saga is so deeply ingrained, when the need to tell the story is a fundamental instinct, how could your people be expected to be anything but extraordinarily literate. Icelanders carry their sagas in their souls. They are born storytellers.  

Icelanders don't follow the crowd, they write their own rules, LITERALLY. One of the many quirks of this country is it's  surprisingly high literacy rate. Literacy in Iceland is universal, and has been since the early 18th century. They are the first country in Europe to have rights to such a claim. In this tiny little nation, more books are published and read per person than anywhere else in the world. A land mainly of scattered rural farming communities that endures through extreme weather and geological uncertainties, it is hardly the place that one would expect to find such depth of expressiveness. This amazing statistic can be directly attributed to Icelanders strong tradition of storytelling. Generations of book lovers, champions of education for all, the people of this island state come from long lines of scribes and poets. Filling their world with age old sagas, accounts of heros and vikings, and tales of monsters and gods. These stories are the birthright of all Icelanders. And even today, Icelanders greatly value and take great pride in their mastery of literacy, associating it directly with their national identity.  You can truly say it is in their blood.

If you plan to travel to Iceland, we encourage you to stop into a bookstore and pick up a translated copy of one of Iceland’s sagas or any other translated work you can find.  From Berjaya Hotels, Iceland’s trusted family of hotels all across the country!  Cheers.