Knut Hamsun

They were poor and an uncle had invited them to farm his land for him. At nine Knut was separated from his family and lived with his uncle Hans Olsen, who needed help with the post office he ran. Olsen used to beat and starve his nephew, and Hamsun later stated that his chronic nervous difficulties were due to how his uncle treated him. In 1874 he finally escaped back to Lom. For the next five years he did any job for money: shop assistant, peddler, shoemaker's apprentice, sheriff's assistant, and an elementary-school teacher. At 17 he became a ropemaker's apprentice. At about the same time he started to write. He asked businessman Erasmus Zahl to give him monetary support, and he agreed. Hamsun later used Zahl as a model for the character Mack appearing in his novels Pan (1894), Dreamers (1904), Benoni (1908) and Rosa (1908). He spent several years in America, traveling and working at various jobs, and published in 1889 his impressions under the title Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv ("From the Spiritual Life of Modern America").

Knut Hamsun was born as Knud Pedersen in Lom Municipality in the Gudbrandsdalen valley, Norway. He was the fourth son among the seven children of Tora Olsdatter and Peder Pedersen. When he was three, the family moved to Hamsund in Hamarøy Municipality in Nordland county. They were poor and an uncle had invited them to farm his land for him. At nine Knut was separated from his family and lived with his uncle Hans Olsen, who needed help with the post office he ran. Olsen used to beat and starve his nephew, and Hamsun later stated that his chronic nervous difficulties were due to how his uncle treated him. In 1874 he finally escaped back to Lom. For the next five years he did any job for money: shop assistant, peddler, shoemaker's apprentice, sheriff's assistant, and an elementary-school teacher. At 17 he became a ropemaker's apprentice. At about the same time he started to write. He asked businessman Erasmus Zahl to give him monetary support, and he agreed. Hamsun later used Zahl as a model for the character Mack appearing in his novels Pan (1894), Dreamers (1904), Benoni (1908) and Rosa (1908). He spent several years in America, traveling and working at various jobs, and published in 1889 his impressions under the title Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv ("From the Spiritual Life of Modern America").

Working all those odd jobs paid off, and he published his first book: Den Gaadefulde: En Kjærlighedshistorie fra Nordland (The Enigmatic Man: A Love Story from Northern Norway, 1877). It was inspired by job experiences and struggles he endured. In his second novel Bjørger (1878), he attempted to imitate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's writing style. The melodramatic story follows a poet, Bjørger, and his love for Laura. This book was published under the pseudonym Knud Pedersen Hamsund. This book later served as the basis for Victoria: En Kærligheds Historie (1898; translated as Victoria: A Love Story, 1923). As of 1898 Hamsun was among the contributors of Ringeren, a political and cultural magazine established by Sigurd Ibsen.

Hamsun first received wide acclaim with his 1890 novel Hunger (Sult). The semiautobiographical work described a young writer's descent into near madness as a result of hunger and poverty in the Norwegian capital of Kristiania (modern name Oslo). To many, the novel presages the writings of Franz Kafka and other twentieth-century novelists with its internal monologue and bizarre logic. A theme to which Hamsun often returned is that of the perpetual wanderer, an itinerant stranger (often the narrator) who insinuates himself into the life of small rural communities. This theme is central to the novels Mysteries, Pan, Under the Autumn Star, The Last Joy, Vagabonds, Rosa, and others. Hamsun's prose often contains rapturous depictions of the natural world, with intimate reflections on the Norwegian woodlands and coastline. For this reason, he has been linked with the spiritual movement known as pantheism ("No one knows God," he once wrote, "man knows only gods."). Hamsun saw mankind and nature united in a strong, sometimes mystical bond. This connection between the characters and their natural environment is exemplified in the novels Pan, A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings, and Growth of the Soil, "his monumental work" credited with securing him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.

During World War II, Hamsun supported the German war effort. He courted and met with high-ranking Nazi officers, including Adolf Hitler. Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wrote a long and enthusiastic diary entry concerning a private meeting with Hamsun; according to Goebbels, Hamsun's "faith in German victory is unshakable". In 1940 Hamsun wrote that "the Germans are fighting for us". On 13 June 1945, after the war, he was detained by police for treason, then committed to a hospital in Grimstad (Grimstad sykehus) "due to his advanced age", according to Einar Kringlen, a professor and medical doctor. In 1947 he was tried in Grimstad and fined. Norway's supreme court reduced the fine from 575,000 to 325,000 Norwegian kroner. After the war, Norwegians were torn between aversion to Hamsun's Nazi sympathies and regard for his achievements and fame as a writer. At his trial Hamsun had pleaded ignorance. Other explanations have cited his contradictory personality, his distaste for hoi polloi, his inferiority complex, his distress at the spread of indiscipline, his dislike of Norway's interwar democracy, and especially his Anglophobia.

Knut Hamsun died on 19 February 1952, aged 92, in Grimstad. His ashes are buried in the garden of his home at Nørholm in Landvik Municipality (now part of Grimstad Municipality).

In 1898, Hamsun married Bergljot Bech (later Göpfert), who bore daughter Victoria, but the marriage ended in 1906. Hamsun then married Marie Andersen (1881–1969) in 1909 and she was his companion until the end of his life. They had four children: sons Tore and Arild and daughters Ellinor and Cecilia. Marie wrote about her life with Hamsun in two memoirs. She was a promising actress when she met Hamsun but ended her career and traveled with him to Hamarøy. They bought a farm, planning "to earn their living as farmers, with his writing providing some additional income". After a few years they moved south, to Larvik. In 1918 they bought Nørholm, an old, somewhat dilapidated manor house in Landvik Municipality, between Lillesand and Grimstad. The main residence was restored and redecorated. Here Hamsun could occupy himself with writing undisturbed, although he often travelled to write in other cities and places, preferring spartan housing.

From his youth onward, Hamsun espoused racist and anti-egalitarian beliefs. In The Cultural Life of Modern America (Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv, 1889), he denounced miscegenation: "The Negros are and will remain Negros, a nascent human form the tropics, rudimentary organs on the body of white society. Instead of founding an intellectual elite, America has established a mulatto studfarm." Hamsun wrote several newspaper articles in the course of the Second World War, including his notorious 1940 assertion that "the Germans are fighting for us, and now are crushing England's tyranny over us and all neutrals". In 1943, he sent Germany's minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift. Its whereabouts since then are unknown. Hamsun's biographer Thorkild Hansen interpreted this as part of the strategy to get an audience with Hitler. Hamsun was eventually invited to meet with Hitler; during the meeting, Hamsun complained about the German civilian administrator in Norway, Josef Terboven and asked that imprisoned Norwegian citizens be released, enraging Hitler. Otto Dietrich describes the meeting in his memoirs as the only time that another person was able to get a word in edgeways with Hitler. He attributes this to Hamsun's deafness. Regardless, Dietrich notes that it took Hitler three days to get over his anger. Hamsun also on other occasions helped Norwegians who had been imprisoned for resistance activities and tried to influence German policies in Norway. Nevertheless, a week after Hitler's death, Hamsun wrote a eulogy for him, saying "He was a warrior, a warrior for mankind, and a prophet of the gospel of justice for all nations." Following the end of the war, angry crowds burned his books in public in major Norwegian cities and Hamsun was confined for several months in a psychiatric hospital. Hamsun was forced to undergo a psychiatric examination, which concluded that he had "permanently impaired mental faculties," and on that basis the charges of treason were dropped. Instead, a civil liability case was raised against him, and in 1948 he had to pay the ruinous sum of 325,000 kroner ($65,000 or £16,250 at that time) to the Norwegian government for his alleged membership in Nasjonal Samling and for the moral support he gave to the Germans, but was cleared of any direct Nazi affiliation. Whether he was a member of Nasjonal Samling or not and whether his mental abilities were impaired is debated even today. Hamsun stated he was never a member of any political party. He wrote his last book Paa giengrodde Stier (On Overgrown Paths) in 1949, a book many take as evidence of his functioning mental capabilities. In it, he harshly criticizes the psychiatrists and the judges and, in his view, proves that he is not mentally ill. Danish author Thorkild Hansen investigated the trial and wrote The Hamsun Trial (1978), which created a storm in Norway. Hansen viewed Hamsun's treatment as outrageous, writing, "If you want to meet idiots, go to Norway." In 1996, Swedish filmmaker Jan Troell based the movie Hamsun on Hansen's book. In Hamsun, Swedish actor Max von Sydow plays Knut Hamsun; his wife Marie is played by Danish actress Ghita Nørby.

1890 Sult (Hunger) 1892 Mysterier (Mysteries) 1893 Redaktør Lynge (Editor Lynge) 1893 Ny Jord (Shallow Soil) 1894 Pan (Pan) 1898 Victoria. En kjærlighedshistorie (Victoria) 1904 Sværmere (Mothwise, 1921), (Dreamers) 1905 Stridende Liv. Skildringer fra Vesten og Østen (Fighting Life. Depictions from the West and the East) 1917 Markens Grøde 2 Volumes (Growth of the Soil) 1920 Konerne ved Vandposten 2 Volumes (The Women at the Pump) 1923 Siste Kapitel (2 Volumes) (Chapter the Last) 1936 Ringen sluttet (The Ring is Closed)

The Wanderer Trilogy 1906 Under Høststjærnen. En Vandrers Fortælling (Under the Autumn Star) 1909 En Vandrer spiller med Sordin (A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings) 1912 Den sidste Glæde (Look Back on Happiness, AKA The Last Joy) Benoni and Rosa 1908 Benoni 1908 Rosa: Af Student Parelius' Papirer (By Student Parelius' Papers) (Rosa) Children of the Age and Segelfoss Town 1913 Børn av Tiden (Children of the Age) 1915 Segelfoss By 1 (2 Volumes) (Segelfoss Town) The August Trilogy 1927 Landstrykere (Wayfarers) (2 Volumes) 1930 August (2 Volumes) 1933 Men Livet lever (The Road Leads On) (2 Volumes)

1895 Ved Rigets Port (At the Gate of the Kingdom) 1896 Livets Spil (The Game of Life) 1898 Aftenrøde. Slutningspil (Evening Red: Inference Games) 1902 Munken Vendt. Brigantine's Saga I 1903 Dronning Tamara (Queen Tamara) 1910 Livet i Vold (In the Grip of Life)

1889 Lars Oftedal. Udkast (Draft) (11 articles, previously printed in Dagbladet) 1889 Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv (The Cultural Life of Modern America) - lectures and criticism 1903 I Æventyrland. Oplevet og drømt i Kaukasien (In Wonderland) - travelogue 1918 Sproget i Fare (The Language in Danger) - essays 1949 Paa gjengrodde Stier (On Overgrown Paths) Nobel Prize-winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer translated some of his works into Yiddish.

National Library of Norway Commemoration Page Biography, from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Hamsun bibliography 1879–2009: literature on Knut Hamsun (National Library of Norway) Knut Hamsun on Nobelprize.org Kristofer Janson and Knut Hamsun at the National Library of Norway Knut Hamsun's America Archived 7 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine at the Norwegian-American Historical Association Knut Hamsun's Early Years in the Northwest Archived 20 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine in Minnesota History Magazine Petri Liukkonen. "Knut Hamsun". Books and Writers. "Knut Hamsun: Dreamer and Dissenter", bio and review at The New Republic, September 2010 Knut Hamsun Online, fan-supported website

Works by Knut Hamsun in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Hamsun bibliography 1879–2009 published by the National Library of Norway and the University library of Tromsø Works by Knut Hamsun at Project Gutenberg List of Works Works by or about Knut Hamsun at the Internet Archive Works by Knut Hamsun at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Det Vilde Kor 1904 at the Internet Archive (Hamsun's only collection of verse)

Wood, James, Addicted to Unpredictability, an essay. Retrieved 8 October 2006. Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater, Davi Napoleon. Includes discussion of Ice Age, a controversial production in which Hamson is the protagonist. Iowa State University Press. ISBN 0-8138-1713-7, 1991. Norwegian Nobel Laureate, Once Shunned, Is Now Celebrated, New York Times. 27 February 2009 Newspaper clippings about Knut Hamsun in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW