Edda, Saga, Nobel Literature prize-winning Halldor Kiljan Laxness.

They're not the only facets of Icelandic culture known to Chinese. In fact, China has been introduced to more than 70 Icelandic authors in the past century, more than 200 different kinds of works.

"We're very acquainted with literature from Northern Europe," says Shi Qin'e, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Foreign Literature, who also brought Edda and Saga, the two mythological folklores, to China. "To that extent we're one rung higher in terms of cultural exchange."