Norwegian author (1859-1952). Won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Neo-romantic novelist, the only Norwegian author besides Henrik Ibsen to achieve lasting international renown. Despised in his native country for supporting National Socialism during WWII and still a controversial figure because of this. Ernest Hemingway supposedly once said that Hamsun taught him to write.
Works by Knut Hamsun contain examples of:
- Crapsack World: Hunger depicts Oslo as this.
- Creator Provincialism: Many of Hamsun`s books take place in Northern Norway - because he grew up there and knew the area quite well.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Victoria is about a miller's son, Johannes, who falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy landowner, Victoria. She has to marry a lieutenant to save the troubled family economy. At the end, when it looks like Johannes and Victoria might finally get to live out their love, she suddenly dies of tuberculosis.
- Magical Negro: If this trope shows up, a Sami will do the part. Gilbert Lapp from Benoni is a dark example of this.
- Self-Made Man: Hamsun spent some time in the US before he began his career as a writer. Although he detested the mentality he found there, this trope stuck, and he used it time and again.
- Starving Artist: Hunger tells the story of a writer who "went around in Christiania, starving."
