In Contemporary Icelandic Literature 1970 – 2002, seen from New York through the eyes of an Icelander, are reviews Hallberg Hallmundsson wrote  about Icelandic contemporary literature, novels and poetry.

In this volumer are all of Hallberg’s reviews that he wrote for World Literature Today. For WLT Hallberg wrote the most numerous articles on the novelist Steinunn Sigurðardóttir (9) and the poet Þorsteinn frá Hamri (9). Seven reviews deal with the novels of Ólafur Jóhann Sigurðsson and Einar már Guðmundsson and the poetry of Jóhann Hjálmarsson. The number six belongs to the novelist Guðbergur Bergsson and the poet Gyrðir Elíasson. The poet Matthías Johannessen was Hallberg’s „schoolbrother“ at Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík, Hallberg wrote about five of his poetry volumes. The same amount of reviews got the poets Hannes Pétursson and Þórarinn Eldjárn.

Hallberg wrote about 100 Icelandic writers in WLT and all of those articles are contained in this book; only two of the review are about novels by our Nobel Prize Winner (1955) Halldór Kiljan Laxness.