Hamsun is called one of the most controversial authors of the 20th century. Stepping from one era to another, he survived fame, the collapse of ideals and oblivion. But in every period of his creative life, Knut Gamsun was sure of his own rightness. Gamsun began his career in the life of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Subsequently, he believed in the Third Reich. And he died only a few years before the launch of the first spacecraft.
From the biography of Knut Hamsun
The future writer was born on August 4, 1859 in a simple peasant family. From an early age, the boy had to work, helping his mother. His school education remained incomplete: in general, he spent about 250 days in the walls of the school.
Gamsun gained his invaluable life experience while wandering around Norway and America, where he was engaged in heavy physical labor. On American soil, the future writer did not disdain any work. Often he brought himself to complete exhaustion.
Returning to his homeland, Gamsun published a number of articles that did not improve his financial situation. He again goes overseas, works in America as a tram driver, while giving lectures on literature.
In 1877, Hamsun's first book, The Mysterious Man, was published. A little later, the novel “Bjerger” and the ballad “Date” were published. In 1888, the writer settled in Copenhagen. Here he publishes in the journal individual chapters of the novel "Hunger",
Misfortunes shaped the personality of the future writer and influenced his work. He became one of those writers who managed to rise to the heights of glory from the bottom, from the bottom of society.
Success came to Knut Hamsun relatively late, after thirty years, when his famous novel “Famine” was published. From that moment he became one of the most famous authors of his time. The success of the work was determined by his theme: he described his miserable existence in Norway, showing a picture of the state of mind of a person who was living on the brink of starvation.
Portrait of a Norwegian writer
Hamsun is considered to be one of the most shocking figures of the late XIX - early XX centuries. For a long time he traveled around Norway, gave lectures in which he spoke about the differences between modern literature and its outdated specimens. Sitting in the forefront of the classics of Norwegian literature - Björnson and Ibsen - Knut Gamsun openly declared: "You have to go!"
In 1920, Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize for the work "The Fruits of Life", which tells about the life of Norwegian peasants, their attachment to the land and fidelity to centuries-old traditions. Over a long life, Gamsun has created three dozen novels, many stories, essays and articles. And critics had nothing to reproach the author for - he did not survive a single failure.
Hamsun categorically rejected the idea of progress. He believed that the new world should be cleansed of everything superficial that was brought into life by the vaunted Western civilization. Gamsun believed that only cruel truth would save the world, he did not try to embellish the facade of reality.
Knut Gamsun was not shy in expressions to America, England and the whole Old World. It grew the conviction that a stream of new life in the world would bring Germany.
He was anxious about the leaders of the Third Reich, met with Hitler. Upon learning of the suicide of the leader of the German Nazis, Gamsun compiled an obituary, where he called Hitler "a fighter for the rights of peoples." The writer later explained his act to his son by the fact that he allegedly did it out of "knightly motives."
