Knut Hamsun(1858-1952) was a Norwegian novelist, poet, and
playwright hailed by many as one of the founders of modern
literature. Born to a poor peasant family in central Norway, he
worked as a schoolmaster, sheriff's assistant, laborer, store
clerk, farmhand, and streetcar conductor in both Scandinavia and
America before establishing himself as a successful playwright and
novelist. His first novel, Hunger (1890), was an immediate critical
success; he went on to write the novels Mysteries (1892), Pan
(1894), Victoria (1898), and The Growth of the Soil (1917), the
last of which earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.
Sverre Lyngstad (1922-2011; translator, introducer, notes) was a
scholar and translator of Norwegian literature and Distinguished
Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at the New
Jersey Institute of Technology. He translated five of Knut Hamsun's
works for Penguin Classics-Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan
(1894), Victoria (1898), and The Growth of the Soil (1917)-and was
honored by the King of Norway with the St. Olav Medal and with the
Knight's Cross, First Class, of the Royal Norwegian Order of
Merit.
Brad Leithauser(introducer) is the author of several novels, four
volumes of poetry, and a collection of essays. He is the Emily
Dickinson Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College.
By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
“Knut Hamsun’s writing is magical, his sentences are glowing, he
could write about anything and make it alive.” —Karl Ove
Knausgaard, The New York Times Book Review
“Growth of the Soil was a worldwide sensation . . . and almost from
the day of publication there were rumors that Hamsun would win the
Nobel Prize. . . . Singer admitted to being ‘hypnotized’ by him;
Hesse called him his favorite writer; Hemingway recommended his
novels to Scott Fitzgerald; Gide compared him to Dostoyevsky, but
believed Hamsun was ‘perhaps even more subtle.’ The list of those
who loved his sly, anarchic voice is long.” —The New Yorker
“Growth of the Soil impresses me as among the very greatest
novels I have ever read. It is wholly beautiful; it is saturated
with wisdom and humor and tenderness.” —H. G. Wells
“The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems
from Hamsun.” —Isaac Bashevis Singer
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