Modern Scandinavian fiction

In twenty years, between 1880 and 1900, the North moved from the margins of Europe to its literary centre. Ibsen slammed the door of a bourgeois house and the theatre changed, Strindberg pushed the duel between a count's daughter and her valet into humiliation, Hamsun told from within of a man who has not eaten for three days and invented the modern monologue. Then came Lagerlöf and her child crossing Sweden on a goose's back, Undset and her medieval fresco, Laxness and his Iceland under Danish rule. Five Nobel prizes would come of it.

works 7

• NovelNiels LyhneJens Peter Jacobsen · 1880A young man wants to live without God, and the book tests this resolve at each bereavement.LiteraturePublic domain
• NovelHungerSultKnut Hamsun · 1890A novel of 1890 in which the narrative leaves events behind to follow, minute by minute, a starving consciousness.LiteraturePublic domain
• TheatreHedda GablerHenrik Ibsen · 1890A play in which a general's daughter, unhappily married and idle, meets again an old acquaintance who has become her husband's rival.Literature
• NovelThe Promised LandDet forjættede landHenrik Pontoppidan · 1895The Danish countryside of folk high schools and pastors, seen by a novelist who grants his illusions to no one.LiteraturePublic domain
• NovelThe Wonderful Adventures of NilsNils Holgerssons underbara resa genom SverigeSelma Lagerlöf · 1906A mischievous boy shrunk as a punishment flies over all the provinces of the country, carried by a migratory bird.Literature
• NovelKristin LavransdatterSigrid Undset · 1922A wealthy farmer's daughter chooses the man she loves against the wishes of her family, and bears the weight of it all her life.LiteraturePublic domain
• NovelIceland's BellÍslandsklukkanHalldór Laxness · 1946A historical novel written at the time of independence, about a wretched people whose old manuscripts are their only treasure.Literature