Dr. Maren Johnson, Luther College’s Associate Professor of Nordic Studies and Torgerson Center for Nordic Studies Director, facilitates a regular bokprat, discussing Scandinavian authors and Scandinavian life.

In October, we’ll discuss Hunger, Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun’s first novel. Set in late 19th-century Kristiania (now Oslo), the novel recounts the adventures of a starving young man whose sense of reality is giving way to a delusionary existence on the darker side of a modern metropolis.

Originally published in Norway in 1890, Hunger probes the depths of consciousness. Contemptuous of novels of his time and what he saw as their stereotypical plots and empty characters, Knut Hamsun embarked on “an attempt to describe the strange, peculiar life of the mind.” Like the works of Dostoyevsky, it marks a break with Western literary and humanistic traditions.

Registration is required for this free event. Find more info and register here.