Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright (American, 1942)

Summary:
Lang is a Harvard student. He goes to a party where he meets a strange foreigner named Dorn. Dorn was from a place named Islandia which had been overrun by the north (Negroes) and the Karain (mixture between Negroes and Arabic settlers) and they had also come under English, French and German influence. A group of anarchists (Mora) had raised against the rulers. Lang learned some things about the Islandian culture with Dorn and he also learned the language. Later, Dorn had to return to his homeland. Many years passed and Lang had the opportunity, thanks to his uncle, to become a consul in Islandia as he knew the language. He thought Dorn was not going to like which side he had to work with. Islandia was an agricultural society. The US and other countries wanted Islandia to commercialize its goods, they were specifically interested on its minerals. Lang wrote letters to Gladys about how Islandia was, but then he fell in love with Dorn’s sister, who didn’t love him in the same way, and instead she married the king. Lang tried to show the Islandian people the benefits of technology and modernity, but later he realized that he prefered to live the way Islandians do. Lang got fired. He learned that the Islandian culture has many differences with his. They don’t entertain themselves as Americans do. They have different words to different kinds of love that he gets to experience with several women during his time in Islandia. Most of the Islandian natives didn’t want to accept changes in their traditions and didn’t want their borders to open to trade with other countries. Lang was asked to watch and protect the border from the Germans. He warns the farms that were near there and saves them. The Islandian people accepted him as a citizen. He returned to the US with Gladys, got married and continued their lives in Islandia.

Another summary:
John Lang, a young American destined to become a businessman decides to try for the position of consul of the United States in Islandia, a very isolated country on the northern part of the Karain subcontinent where his best friend from college, Dorn, lives. Once there, he is supposed to support and pave the way for any future businessmen interested in the possible opening to the world that the so called “Mora Treaty” could bring forth, but Dorn and many dear friends he meets there happen to oppose this idea. During his stay, Lang starts to become more and more entangled with the Islandian way of life, seen as “simple”, “primitive” and “against progress” by most foreigners. This leads Washington to ask him to resign his position for he has failed his original purpose in the country. Now free from his national obligations, he hopes to see his friends’ side win and, when it eventually happens, he decides to stay in Islandia for the year the country’s law allows. He gets more and more absorbed by this new life and when he is asked to help protect the country’s borders by way of unofficial lookouts, he enlists and saves the life of the queen (an old love interest) and many people from the valley. He is then invited to live in Islandia as one of them, but he decides to try American life for a year before deciding where he would like to settle. During his year in the US, he gets closer and closer to Gladys Hunter, a young woman with whom he has been corresponding and in the end they go together to Islandia to marry and live there on a farm.

Another summary:
In the book, Islandia is a fictional country that is far from the existing Islandia, it is a commercially closed island and isolated by tradition, which has a technological backwardness compared to the rest of the world.
 The story takes place at the beginning of the 20th century when John Lang begins his university studies at Harvard and meets Dorn, who is an exchange student from Islandia; they become friends fast and John develops a great interest in Islandia and its culture.
 Learning the language and culture of Islandia, added to the influences of his uncle (who is an important businessman who wants to establish commercial relations with Islandia) and that in the island there is a party that wants to end the isolation; John is appointed as the American consul to Islandia and goes to live there, reuniting with Dorn, whose family leads the opposition to the opening of the borders.
 Arriving to the island, John is surprised by his way of life, agricultural, traditional, slow and calm, completely different from what he is used to and, although he does it involuntarily, he is supporting the opening of borders, little by little he he falls in love with the country and its customs, he is well received by Dorn and his family since friendship is considered much more important than any political dispute and he even falls in love, but is rejected.
 When it comes time to decide who to support (his country and his uncle or his friends and the island he loves), he decides, of course, to support his island friends, Islandia remains closed, gives John citizenship, and furthermore John invites a friend of his (who is eventually given nationality) to live with him and eventually they marry.

World view: Describes in a variety of aspects and with some consistency an imaginary state or society which is regarded as better, in some respects at least, than the one in which its author lives.
Future projections: It’s a negative emotional reaction against technological (transcendental, evolutive) or social progress. As such, It shows the horrible consequences of utopia or at least portrays skepticism or disappointment in regard to scientific or technological miracles.
Ideology: Explains how a better society came to be, in which sociopolitical institutions and individual relationships are organized to a more perfect principle than in the author's community.
Characters, plot and writing style: A perfectly planned social order derives on the personal satisfaction and psychic well-being of the characters.
Classification: Dystopia