Many authors are from Iceland, including Halldór Laxness, Tómas Guðmundsson, Davíð Stefánsson, Jón Thoroddsen, Guðmundur G. Hagalín, Þórbergur Þórðarson and Jóhannes úr Kötlum.

Iceland's best-known classical works of literature are the Icelandic Sagas, prose epics set in Iceland's age of settlement. The most famous of these include Njál's saga, about an epic blood feud, and the Grænlendinga and Eiríks sagas, describing the discovery and settlement of Greenland and Vinland (modern Newfoundland).

W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice wrote Letters From Iceland (1937) to describe their travels through that country.

Since the end of 2003, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir has been the Iceland minister of culture.

See also: Music of Iceland