Knut Hamsun Biografia, Books, Films and Quotes

Knut Hamsun Biografia

Knut Hamsun was born on 1859 in Gudbrandsdalen, Norway, and grew up in poverty in Hamarøy in Nordland. From early childhood he was a shoemaker’s apprentice, but was also a road worker, stonemason, junior-level teacher, and so on. He spent some years in America, travelling and working as a tram driver, and published his impressions, chiefly satirical, under the title Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv (1889) [The Intellectual Life of Modern America]. The novel Sult (1890) [Hunger] and even more so Pan (1894) led to Hamsun’s literary breakthrough and Sult is regarded as the first genuinely modern novel in Norwegian literature.

Hamsun’s work is determined by a deep aversion to civilization and the belief that man’s only fulfilment lies with the soil. This primitivism (and its concomitant distrust of all things modern) found its fullest expression in Hamsun’s masterpiece Markens Grøde (1917) [Growth of the Soil]. His early works usually centre on an outcast, a vagabond figure, aggressively opposed to civilization. In his middle period, Hamsun’s aggressiveness gives way to melancholy resignation about the loss of youth. The decay of age is the theme of such plays as Livets Spil (1896) [Game of Life] and Aftenrøde (1898) [ Sunset], as well as of the novels Under Høststjernen (1906)[Under the Autumn Star], Benoni (1908), and En Vandrer Spiller med Sordin (1909) [A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings]. In 1904 Hamsun also published a volume of poems, Det vilde Kor [The Wild Chorus].

Hamsun’s later works focused less on individual characters and more on broad attacks on civilization. Apart from Marken’s Grøde one should mention Børn av Tiden (1913) [Children of the Age], Segelfoss By (1915) [Segelfoss Town] Landstrykere (1927) [Vagabonds], August (1930), Men Livet lever (1933) [The Road leads on], and Ringen sluttet (1936) [The Ring is Closed].

Knut Hamsun

Hamsun’s collaboration with the Nazis seriously damaged his reputation, but after his death critical interest in his works was renewed and new translations made them again accessible to an international readership. Already in 1949, at age 90, he had made a remarkable literary comeback with Paa gjengrodde stier (On Overgrown Paths), which was in part memoir, in part self-defense, but first and foremost a treasure trove of vibrant impressions of nature and the seasons. His deliberate irrationalism and his wayward, spontaneous, impressionistic style had wide influence throughout Europe, and such writers as Maxim Gorky, Thomas Mann, and Isaac Bashevis Singer acknowledged him as a master.

Hamsun’s admiration for Germany, which was of long standing, made him sympathetic toward the Nazi invasion of Norway in 1940. After the war he was sentenced to the loss of his property, temporarily put under psychiatric observation, and spent his last years in poverty. A fifteen-volume edition of his complete works was published in 1954, two years after his death.

Victoria Knut Hamsun

Victoria is a novel by a Norwegian author Knut Hamsun published in 1898. The novel is about a miller’s son, Johannes, who falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy landowner, Victoria. The novel follows them through adolescence, as Johannes struggles with the social hierarchy and becomes a successful author, and Victoria is forced into marrying Otto, a lieutenant, to save the troubled family economy.

Originally published: 1898
Author: Knut Hamsun
Genre: Fiction
Adaptations: Victoria (1979)
Country: Norway

Knut Hamsun Mysteries

Mysteries (Norwegian: Mysterier) is the second novel by Norwegian author Knut Hamsun published in 1892. The novel is about a community of a small Norwegian coastal town is shaken by the arrival of eccentric stranger Johan Nagel, who proceeds to shock, bewilder, and beguile its bourgeois inhabitants with his bizarre behavior, feverish rants, and uncompromising self-revelations.

Originally published: 1892
Author: Knut Hamsun
Genre: Psychological Fiction
Page count: 352
Adaptations: Mysteries (1978)
Publishers: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Media type: Print
Pages: 352

Hunger Knut Hamsun – Sult

Hunger (Sult) is a novel by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun published in 1890. Parts of the novel had been published anonymously in the Danish magazine Ny Jord in 1888. Hunger portrays the irrationality of the human mind in an intriguing and sometimes humorous manner.

Originally published: 1890
Author: Knut Hamsun
Original title: Sult
Country: Norway
Genres: Psychological Fiction, Philosophical fiction
Original languages: Danish, Norwegian

Knut Hamsun Markens Grøde

Growth of the soil (Norwegian Markens Grøde), is a novel by Knut Hamsun published in 1917. The novel won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. It was first published in 1917 and it has since been translated from Norwegian into languages such as English. It was written in the popular style of Norwegian new realism, a movement dominating the early 20th century. The novel contains two sections entitled Book One and Book Two. The first book focuses almost solely on the story of Isak and his family and the second book starts off by following the plight of Axel and ends mainly focusing on Isak’s family.

Originally published: 1917
Author: Knut Hamsun
Genre: Fiction
Original language: Norwegian
Adaptations: Growth of the Soil (1921)
Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature

Knut Hamsun Pan

Pan is a novel by Norwegian author Knut Hamsun published in 1894. Knut wrote it while living in Paris and in Kristiansand, Norway. It remains one of his most famous works.

Originally published: 1894
Author: Knut Hamsun
Genre: Novel
Page count: 192
Publishers: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Translators: Sverre Lyngstad, James McFarlane

Victoria Knut Hamsun Film

Victoria is a Norwegian drama film directed by Torun Lian, starring Jakob Oftebro, Iben Akerlie and Bill Skarsgård released in 2013. The film is based on the novel Victoria by Knut Hamsun which tells the story of the love between the daughter of a landowner and the son of a local miller. It was released in Norway on 1 March 2013. Fridtjov Såheim received the Amanda Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

Initial release: 1 March 2013 (Norway)
Director: Torun Lian
Screenplay: Torun Lian
Music composed by: Arve Henriksen, Jan Bang, Gaute Storaas, Erik Honoré
Producers: John M. Jacobsen, Pancho Kohner, Sveinung Golimo

Cast

• Iben Akerlie as Victoria
• Jakob Oftebro as Johannes
• Bill Skarsgård as Otto
• Fridtjov Såheim as Victoria’s father

Knut Hamsun Quotes

1. I love three things,” I then say. “I love a dream of love I once had, I love you, and I love this patch of earth.
2. Do not forget, some give little, and it is much for them, others give all, and it costs them no effort; who then has given most?
3. But things worked out. Everything works out. Though sometimes they work out sideways.
4. Keep it, keep it!” I answered. “You are very welcome to it! It is only a couple of small things, doesn’t amount to anything—about everything I own in the world.
5. But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe…
6. And the great spirit of darkness spread a shroud over me…everything was silent-everything. But upon the heights soughed the everlasting song, the voice of the air, the distant, toneless humming which is never silent.
7. I can’t even make up a rhyme about an umbrella, let alone death and life and eternal peace.
8. But now it was spring again, and spring was almost unbearable for sensitive hearts. It drove creation to its utmost limits, it wafted its spice-laden breath even into the nostrils of the innocent.
9. Small jerks began to appear in my legs, my walk became unsteady precisely because I wanted it to be smooth.
10. The heavy red roses smoldering in the foggy morning, blood-colored and uninhibited, made me greedy, and tempted me powerfully to steal one–I asked the prices merely so I could come as near them as possible.

Knut Hamsun Bøker – Books

• 1877 Den Gaadefulde. En kjærlighedshistorie fra Nordland
• 1878 Et Gjensyn
• 1878 Bjørger
• 1889 Lars Oftedal. Udkast
• 1889 Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv
• 1890 Sult
• 1892 Mysterier
• 1893 Redaktør Lynge
• 1893 Ny Jord
• 1894 Pan
• 1895 Ved Rigets Port
• 1896 Livets Spil
• 1897 Siesta
• 1898 Aftenrøde. Slutningspil
• 1898 Victoria. En kjærlighedshistorie
• 1902 Munken Vendt. Brigantines saga I
• 1903 I Æventyrland. Oplevet og drømt i Kaukasien
• 1903 Dronning Tamara, play
• 1903 Kratskog
• 1904 Det vilde Kor
• 1904 Sværmere
• 1905 Stridende Liv. Skildringer fra Vesten og Østen
• 1906 Under Høststjærnen
• 1908 Benoni Benoni
• 1908 Rosa: Af Student Parelius’ Papirer
• 1909 En Vandrer spiller med Sordin
• 1909 En Vandrer spiller med Sordin
• 1910 Livet i Vold, play
• 1912 Den sidste Glæde
• 1913 Børn av Tiden
• 1915 Segelfoss By 1
• 1915 Segelfoss By 2
• 1917 Markens Grøde 1
• 1917 Markens Grøde 2
• 1918 Sproget i Fare
• 1920 Konerne ved Vandposten I
• 1920 Konerne ved Vandposten II
• 1923 Siste Kapitel I
• 1923 Siste Kapitel II
• 1927 Landstrykere I
• 1927 Landstrykere II
• 1930 August I
• 1930 August II
• 1933 Men Livet lever I
• 1933 Men Livet lever II
• 1936 Ringen sluttet
• 1949 Paa gjengrodde Stier

Knut Hamsun Vgs

Knut Hamsun High School is located at Oppeid. The school aims to offer education programs that can be a good foundation no matter what career path the student chooses. Knut Hamsun vgs offers a study in Outdoor Life that can be taken at the same time as the student takes VG2 and VG3 study specialization. For more information click here.

CONTACT

Campuses 
Hamarøy: 8294 Oppeid 
Steigen: 8283 Leinesfjord

Mailing address:

Knut Hamsun Center

The Knut Hamsun Centre is a museum and educational centre in Hamarøy in Northern Norway dedicated to the life and work of the writer Knut Hamsun. The exhibition is structured thematically and deals with topics like Knut Hamsun’s childhood in Hamarøy, Hamsun’s support of Germany during World War II, and modernism or proto-modernism in Hamsun’s writing.

The center’s architect Steven Holl was first contacted about designing it for Knut Hamsun in 1994. Holl was inspired by the Hamarøy nature and scenery, by Norwegian building tradition with stave churches and sod roofs, and by Hamsun’s literature—especially the early works Hunger (1890) and Mysteries (1892).

The buildings’ design has generated considerable attention and debate, and the it has received several national and international architecture awards. The Centre was finished on August 4, 2009, the 150th anniversary of Knut Hamsun’s birth, and the exhibition about Hamsun’s life and work opened for the public in June 2010.

Knut Hamsun Video