Hunger

by Hamsun, Knut; Lyngstad, Sverre; Lyngstad, Sverre

• ISBN13: 9780141180649
• ISBN10: 0141180641
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-02-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Originally published in 1890, this classic of modern literature follows an impoverished Norwegian writer through the streets of Christiania (now Olso) as he struggles on the edge of starvation. Existing on what little money he makes from selling the occasional article to the local paper, and down to pawning the clothes on his back, the young writer slowly loses control of his reason and begins to slip increasingly into bouts of madness, paranoia, and despair.A gripping portrait of an artist struggling for integrity, Hunger mirrors the dire straits of Hamsun's own life when he brought this, his then incomplete first novel, to a publisher in 1888.

Author Biography

Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun (1858–1952) worked as a laborer in both Scandinavia and America before establishing himself as a successful playwright and novelist.

Sverre Lyngstad, the preeminent scholar of Norwegian literature, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Sverre Lyngstad, the preeminent scholar of Norwegian literature, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii	(20)
Suggestions for Further Reading	xxvii	(2)
Translator's Note	xxix
HUNGER
PART ONE	1	(52)
PART TWO	53	(44)
PART THREE	97	(60)
PART FOUR	157	(42)
Explanatory Notes	199	(4)
Textual Notes	203