The Nazi novelist you should read

It’s been widely argued that Hamsun produced his best work in the early part of his career, from which emerged the classic novels Mysteries, Pan, Victoria, and the aforementioned Hunger. There is some truth to this. As Hamsun grew older he turned away from many of his innovations and began writing epics more in the tradition of writers such as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. During this latter period, however, Hamsun did produce some fine work, including the novels Growth of the Soil, for which he was awarded the Nobel prize in 1920, and The Ring is Closed, a criminally under-read meditation on the meaning of work and life that is one of the true jewels of western literature.

Knut Hamsun

While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.

Select Citation Style
Copy Citation
Share to social media
Give Feedback
External Websites
Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites
Britannica Websites
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
verifiedCite

While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.

Select Citation Style
Copy Citation
Share to social media
External Websites
Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites
Britannica Websites
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
Alternate titles: Knut Pedersen
Written and fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encyclopaedia Britannica’s editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Feb 15, 2023 • Article History
Table of Contents
Knut Hamsun

Born: August 4, 1859 Norway . (Show more) Died: February 19, 1952 (aged 92) Norway . (Show more) Awards And Honors: Nobel Prize (1920) . (Show more) Notable Works: “Growth of the Soil” “Hunger” “Mysteries” “On Overgrown Paths” . (Show more)

Knut Hamsun, pseudonym of Knut Pedersen, (born August 4, 1859, Lom, Norway—died February 19, 1952, near Grimstad), Norwegian novelist, dramatist, poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920. A leader of the Neoromantic revolt at the turn of the century, he rescued the novel from a tendency toward excessive naturalism.

Of peasant origin, Hamsun spent most of his childhood in remote Hamarøy, Nordland county, and had almost no formal education. He started to write at age 19, when he was a shoemaker’s apprentice in Bodø, in northern Norway. During the next 10 years, he worked as a casual labourer. Twice he visited the United States, where he held a variety of mostly menial jobs in Chicago, North Dakota, and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Britannica Quiz
Literary Favorites: Fact or Fiction?

His first publication was the novel Sult (1890; Hunger), the story of a starving young writer in Norway. Sult marked a clear departure from the social realism of the typical Norwegian novel of the period. Its refreshing viewpoint and impulsive, lyrical style had an electrifying effect on European writers. Hamsun followed his first success with a series of lectures that revealed his obsession with August Strindberg and attacked such idols as Henrik Ibsen and Leo Tolstoy, and he produced a flow of works that continued until his death.

Like the asocial heroes of his early works—e.g., Mysterier (1892; Mysteries), Pan (1894; Eng. trans. Pan), and Victoria (1898; Eng. trans. Victoria)—Hamsun either was indifferent to or took an irreverent view of progress. In a work of his mature style, Markens grøde (1917; Growth of the Soil), he expresses a back-to-nature philosophy. But his message of fierce individualism, influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche and Strindberg, remains constant. Consistent to the end in his antipathy to modern Anglo-American culture, Hamsun supported the Germans during their occupation of Norway in World War II. After the war he was imprisoned as a traitor, but charges against him were dropped in view of his age. He was, however, convicted of economic collaboration and had to pay a fine that ruined him financially.

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.

A six-volume comprehensive edition of Hamsun’s letters, Knut Hamsuns brev, was published in Norwegian (1994–2001), with two volumes of Selected Letters (1990–98) appearing in English translation.

The Nazi novelist you should read

Isaac Bashevis Singer famously called Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun the father of modern literature. I’d take this further and say that he’s the father of postmodern literature as well. With 1890’s Hunger, Hamsun unleashed the first in a series of novels that anticipated everything from the terrifying absurdities of Kafka to the desiccated ennui of the existentialists and even Charles Bukowski’s autobiographical explorations.

Despite this, Hamsun is a writer who today is shunned by much of the literary establishment, not because his writing has lost any of its lustre, I’d argue, but because of his far-right political views, which came to a head during the second world war with his open support of Hitler and Norway’s post-invasion Nazi puppet government.

I will not defend Hamsun’s politics. He betrayed both his country and more importantly humanity in general and deserves every bit of the scorn that’s been heaped upon him. Hamsun’s writing, however, is another matter. Whether we like the man or not, it seems to me both foolish and pointless to continue ignoring the significance of Hamsun’s work – if for no other reason than it’s an important part of our literary evolution and denying this can do nothing but cloud our understanding of our ourselves as readers and writers.

In regard to Hamsun’s evolution as a writer, it’s far harder to describe than what came in his wake. Unlike virtually every other writer who has ever lived, Hamsun seems to have emerged fully formed, free from any definable literary tradition, or even overt influences. Born poor in rural Norway, Hamsun was largely self-educated and lacked both the social and intellectual background usually associated with the European literati of his time. After a long period of writing juvenilia and knocking about the world (he lived in the United States on two occasions), Hamsun hit upon in his voice in his early thirties – and it was unlike any that had come before.

According to Hamsun, novel writing at that time was dominated by laboriously plotted tomes filled with parlour talk and stilted prose that contained little psychological or emotional insight. Hamsun raged against such conventions. Employing a style that was both hard-edged and surprisingly lyrical, he wrote lean stories, often in the first person, based less on actions than the convoluted, contradictory, and often brutal machinations of the human mind and heart. The result was a series of breathtaking “psychological” novels that astounded both critics and readers alike.

It’s been widely argued that Hamsun produced his best work in the early part of his career, from which emerged the classic novels Mysteries, Pan, Victoria, and the aforementioned Hunger. There is some truth to this. As Hamsun grew older he turned away from many of his innovations and began writing epics more in the tradition of writers such as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. During this latter period, however, Hamsun did produce some fine work, including the novels Growth of the Soil, for which he was awarded the Nobel prize in 1920, and The Ring is Closed, a criminally under-read meditation on the meaning of work and life that is one of the true jewels of western literature.

In the last decades of his life Hamsun’s politics, which had been consistently veering to the right for many years, crystallised into a bizarre vision of “pan-Teutonic unity”, which ultimately led to his support of the Nazis and his downfall as a public figure. As painful as this might still be to some, it does not negate Hamsun’s value as an artist or his influence on following generations of writers.

The novel is what it is today in large part because of what Knut Hamsun wrought, which is a fact that no amount of revisionist history can wipe away. It’s time we accept this and try to figure some way to bring the man’s books back into the canon, while leaving his horrid politics out in the cold where they belong.

Автор Кнут Гамсун | Knut Hamsun

Родился 4 августа 1859 в приходе Веге в долине Гудбрандсдален. Он был четвёртым ребёнком в семье деревенского портного Педера Педерсена. Жил в бедности, с девяти лет работал в конторе у своего дяди, затем начались годы странствий (с 1873), в течение которых он сменил множество занятий. Писать начал с 17 лет. Первая книга появилась в 1877. В молодости много путешествовал, побывав, в частности, в США. После 1888 обосновался в Копенгагене. В 1890 у Гамсуна выходит новаторский психологический роман «Голод», принёсший ему славу. В 1890-е и особенно в 1900-е Гамсун был одним из самых популярных в мире писателей и драматургов модернизма, неоднократно переводился и был очень известен в России.

В 1898 Гамсун женится на Берглиот Бех — этот брак продлился восемь лет. В 1909 он женится во второй раз (на актрисе Мари Андерсен). Мари после свадьбы оставила карьеру и оставалась с Гамсуном до конца его жизни.

В 1918 супруги покупают усадьбу Нёрхольм, в которой Гамсун проведёт остаток жизни. В 1920 Гамсуну присуждается Нобелевская премия по литературе за монументальный труд «Плоды земли». В 1943 Гамсун передал свою медаль нобелевского лауреата министру пропаганды Третьего Рейха Йозефу Геббельсу.

После прихода Гитлера к власти в Германии и во время Второй мировой войны Гамсун, ранее систематически проповедовавший немецкую культуру и выступавший против англосаксонской, встал на сторону нацистов и поддерживал Видкуна Квислинга. Видя все жестокости и преступления режима под руководством рейхкомиссара Тербовена, Гамсун, встретившись с Гитлером в 1943-ем, потребовал от него избавить Норвегию от Тербовена и реальной политической самостоятельности, чем привёл фюрера в ярость.

После окончания войны Гамсун был отдан под суд. Он избежал тюремного заключения благодаря преклонному возрасту, однако был оштрафован по гражданскому иску. Позднее он описал судебный процесс в книге «По заросшим тропинкам». Сын писателя Арильд служил военным корреспондентом в специальном пропагандистском взводе, в 1943 вошедшем в специальный пропагандистский полк SS Kurt Eggers.

Сразу после смерти Гитлера Гамсун написал некролог, в котором назвал нацистского лидера «борцом за права народов», несмотря на то, что близкие отговаривали его от этого шага.

После войны он некоторое время жил в доме для престарелых, а в 1950 вернулся в Нёрхольм.