Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
life (for which he was accused of romanticising the lot of rural Norwegians). His home at
Aulestad (
Click here
) is open to visitors.
KnutHamsun(1859-1952)wontheNobelPrizeforLiteraturein1920.Hisgreatestnov-
els include
Hunger
(1890),
Mysteries
(1892) and
The Growth of the Soil
(1917). Hamsun's
elitism,hisappreciationofGermanicvaluesandhisidealisationofrurallifeledhimtoside
with the Nazis in WWII, forever darkening his reputation with Norwegians. Only now is
he being recognised as belonging to the tradition of Dostoevsky and Joyce.
Sigrid Undset (1882-1949) became the third of Norway's Nobel Liter-ature laureates in
1928 and is regarded as the most significant female writer in Norwegian literature. Undset
beganbywritingabouttheplightofpoorandmiddle-classwomen;between1920and1922
shepublished the
Kristin Lavransdatter
trilogy,which wasset in14th-century Scandinavia
and was later turned into a film (see the boxed text,
Click here
).Her former home in Lille-
hammer (
Click here
) is open to the public.
Contemporary Literature
One of the best-known modern Norwegian writers is Jan Kjærstad (b 1953), whose
The
Seducer
(2003) combines the necessary recipe for a bestseller - a thriller with a love affair
and a whiff of celebrity - with seriously good writing. It won the 1999 Nordic Prize for
Literature among other international prizes.
OtherNorwegianwinnersoftheprestigiousNordicPrizeincludePerPetterson(b1952),
who won in 2009 and whose works include
Out Stealing Horses, To Siberia
and
I Curse
the River of Time
;andLarsSaabyeChristensen (b1953),whosenovel
Beatles
washugely
popular in Norway.
Another increasingly world-renowned author is Jostein Gaarder (b 1952), whose first
bestselling novel,
Sophie's World
(1991), sold over 15 million copies worldwide. Other
Gaarder works include
The Solitaire Mystery
and
The Christmas Mystery,
which are simil-
arly written in the voice of a child protagonist, and his 2010 work
The Castle in the Pyren-
ees
.
Other popular and well-known novelists include Erik Fosnes Hansen (b 1965), Ingvar
Ambjørnsen (b 1956), Erlend Loe (b 1969) and Dag Solstad (b 1941); the latter is the
onlyNorwegianauthortowintheNorwegianLiteraryCritics'Awardthreetimes.Herbjørg
Wassmo (b 1942) has also won numerous international prizes, and her 1989
Dina's Book,
set in 1840s Norway, was turned into a film called
I am Dina
(2002), starring Gerard De-
pardieu. Her acclaimed
The House with the Blind Glass Windows
is set in and after WWII.
In the crime fiction genre, Gunnar Staalesen and Karin Fossum have devoted international
followings.
