Sigrid Undset(1882-1949) was born in Denmark, the eldest daughter
of a Norwegian father and a Danish mother. Two years after her
birth, the family moved to Oslo, where her father, a distinguished
archaeologist, taught at the university. Her father's interest in
the past had a tremendous influence on Undset. She was particularly
entranced by the dramatic Old Norse sagas she read as a child,
later declaring that her exposure to them marked "the most
important turning point in my life."
Undset's first published works-the novelMrs. Marta Oulie(1907) and
a short-story collection,The Happy Age(1908)-were set in
contemporary times and achieved both critical and popular success.
With her reputation as a writer well-established, Undset had the
freedom to explore the world that had first fired her imagination,
and inGunnar's Daughter(1909) she drew upon her knowledge of
Norway's history and legends, including the Icelandic Sagas, to
recreate medieval life with compelling immediacy. In 1912, Undset
married the painter Anders Castus Svarstad and over the next ten
years faced the formidable challenge of raising three stepchildren
and her own three off-spring with little financial or emotional
support from her husband. Eventually, she and her children moved
from Oslo to Lillehammer, and her marriage was annulled in 1924,
when Undset converted to Catholicism.
Although Undset wrote more modern novels, a collection of essays on
feminism, as well as numerous book reviews and newspaper articles,
her fascination with the Middle Ages never ebbed, and in 1920 she
publishedThe Wreath, the first volume of her most famous
work,Kristin Lavransdatter. The next two volumes quickly
followed-The Wifein 1921, andThe Crossin 1922. The trilogy earned
Undset worldwide acclaim, and her second great medieval epic-the
four-volumeThe Master of Hestviken(1925-1927)-confirmed her place
as one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. In 1928, at the
age of 46, she received the Nobel Prize in Literature, only the
third woman to be so honored.
Undset went on to publish more novels-including the
autobiographicalThe Longest Years-and several collections of essays
during the 1930s. As the Germans advanced through Norway in 1940,
Undset, an outspoken critic of Nazism, fled the country and
eventually settled in Brooklyn, New York. She returned to her
homeland in 1945, and two years later she was awarded Norway's
highest honor for her "distinguished literary work and for service
to her country." The years of exile, however, had taken a great
toll on her, and she died of a stroke on June 10, 1949.
Brad Leithauser is the author of several novels, four volumes of
poetry, and a collection of essays. He is the Emily Dickinson
Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College.
[Sigrid Undset] should be the next Elena Ferrante . . . If HBO is
looking for its next miniseries, it should give Kristin
Lavransdatter the proper adaptation it deserves. This trilogy
includes illicit sex, affairs, a church fire, an attempted rape,
ocean voyages, rebellious virgins cooped up in a convent, predatory
priests, an attempted human sacrifice, floods, fights, murders,
violent suicide, a gay king, drunken revelry, the Bubonic Plague,
deathbed confessions, and sex that makes its heroine ache 'with
astonishment - that this was the iniquity that all the songs were
about'
*Slate*
Tiina Nunnally's magnificent version revitalised Undset's epic in
English: each page glows and sparkles like the landscapes she so
wonderfully evokes
*The 100 Best Novels in Translation*
[My favourite fictional hero or heroine is] probably Sigrid
Undset's strong-willed, sensual, self-destructive and ultimately
rock-solid Kristin Lavransdatter. . . . Right away one somehow
identifies with this daughter of medieval Norway; soon one
compassionates her in her sufferings. . . . Like Murasaki and Dos
Passos, Undset tells the story of a whole life
*The New York Times Book Review*
At certain points, Kristin Lavransdatter felt more real than the
life I was living
*Electric Lit*
The Nunnally translation is excellent - straightforward but also
evocative, lyrical enough in places, but not, like earlier
translations, overly romantic or archaic.... Every detail of
Kristin Lavransdatter is significant, because the author knows what
every detail means and how they all fit together. This makes the
novel a rich and satisfying read
*Jane Smiley*
We consider it the best book our judges have ever selected and it
has been better received by our subscribers than any other book
*Book-of-the-Month Club*
The finest historical novel our 20th century has yet produced;
indeed it dwarfs most of the fiction of any kind that Europe has
produced in the last twenty years
*Contemporary Movements in European Literature*
As a novel it must be ranked with the greatest the world knows
today
*Montreal Star*
Sigrid Undset's trilogy embodies more of life, seen understandingly
and seriously . . . than any novel since Dostoevsky's Brothers
Karamazov
*Commonweal*
The first great story founded upon the normal events of a normal
woman's existence. It is as great and as rich, as simple and as
profound, as such a story should be
*Des Moines Register*
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