Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun (1859–1952) was born into rural poverty in central Norway and spent his youth in a series of grueling apprenticeships and odd jobs—schoolteacher, sheriff's assistant, streetcar conductor in Chicago—that gave him firsthand knowledge of the hunger and deprivation he would immortalize in fiction. After years of obscurity and failed literary attempts, he published Hunger in 1890, which made his reputation overnight and announced a radical new direction for the European novel. This author hub collects 1 work in the Canon Compass ranking, led by Hunger.