(real surname, Pedersen). Born Aug. 4, 1859, in Lom; died Feb. 19, 1952, in Nørholmen. Norwegian writer. Son of a village tailor.

Hamsun led the life of a vagabond from the age of 14 and changed professions several times. He began his literary activity in 1877. His impressions from journeys to America were recounted in The Cultural Life of Modern America (1889) and other publicistic works. The psychological novel Hunger (1890; Russian translation, 1892), about the sufferings of a poor writer in Kristiania, brought success to Hamsun. Neoromantic motifs are evidenced in his novels Mysteries (1892; Russian translation, 1910), Pan (1894; Russian translation, 1901), and Victoria (1898; Russian translation, 1904). The main characters of these novels stand in opposition to society and follow directly the impulses of their contradictory nature. Hamsun masterfully portrays their complex emotional lives. Hamsun’s characteristic individualism led him to adopt a sharply antidemocratic stand, which was evident in his dramatic trilogy At the Gates of the Realm (1895), The Play of Life (1896), and Sunset (1898). At the start of the 20th century Marxist critics like G. V. Plekhanov pointed out the decadent and reactionary tendencies in Hamsun’s works, while at the same time noting his talent. On several occasions M. Gorky wrote about the artistic force and originality of Hamsun’s best books.

The novel Under the Autumn Star (1906) was the first of a number of Hamsun’s works about life in the north of Norway, including Benoni (1908) and A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings (1909). Hamsun contrasted in his work the peasant’s way of life and its closeness to nature with life in the capitalist city. A novel on this theme, Growth of the Soil (1917; Russian translation, 1922), won the Nobel Prize in 1920. The idea of man’s loneliness and helplessness in the contemporary world predominates in Hamsun’s novels The Women at the Pump (1920; Russian translation, 1923), The Last Chapter (1923; Russian translation, 1924), Vagabonds (1927; Russian translation, 1929), August (1930; Russian translation, 1933), The Road Leads On (1933; Russian translation, 1934), and The Ring Is Closing (1936). During the years of World War II (1939-45), Hamsun collaborated with the German occupation forces. After the rout of Hitlerite Germany, he was prosecuted for treason against his fatherland and was ostracized by Norwegian society. Hamsun described the years he spent awaiting trial (1945-48) in his book On Overgrown Paths (1949). Progressive circles in Norway draw a line between Hamsun’s treasonous conduct during the years of the German occupation and his literary accomplishments.