Sigrid Undset

Sigrid Undset (born May 20, 1882, Kalundborg, Denmark—died June 10, 1949, Lillehammer, Norway) was a Norwegian novelist who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. She is best known for her trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter (1920–22), which is considered a masterpiece of Norwegian literature.

Childhood

Undset’s father, Ingvald Martin Undset, was an archaeologist, and her home life was steeped in legend, folklore, and the history of Norway. Both this influence and her own life story are constantly present in her works—from Elleve aar (1934; Eleven Years), in which she tells of her childhood, to the story of her flight from Nazi-occupied Norway, published originally in English as Return to the Future (1942; Norwegian Tillbake til fremtiden). Her mother, Charlotte Undset (née Gyth), was Danish, and both of her parents were atheists. However, Undset and her two younger sisters were raised Lutheran in accordance with Norwegian expectations at the time. (Lutheranism was Norway’s state-sponsored religion.)

Early novels

Undset worked in the office of an electrical engineering firm in Christiania (now Oslo) for 10 years. During this time, she began to write. Early on, she was interested in historical fiction, but the first publisher to whom she presented work of this type was uninterested and suggested that she try writing “something modern.” Thus, her first published novel, Fru Marta Oulie (1907; Marta Oulie), was about a modern woman who is unfaithful to her husband. The following year she published Den lykkelige alder (“The Happy Age”), a collection of short stories featuring schoolgirls and working women as their protagonists. Indeed, many of Undset’s early novels deal with the position of women in the contemporary unromantic world of the lower middle class. These works also include Jenny (1911) and Splinten av troldspeilet (1917; Images in a Mirror).

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In 1909, however, Undset turned to the distant past and published Fortællingen om Viga-Ljot og Vigdis (“The Tale of Viga-Ljot and Vigdis,” 1909; translated into English as Gunnar’s Daughter, 1936), a story about rape and revenge set in 11th-century Iceland and Norway. Although it does not measure up in quality to her later works of historical fiction, the novel captures her intimate understanding of the Middle Ages and of medieval women’s lives. Its publication led to a scholarship from the Norwegian Writers’ Association, which she used to quit her job and travel to Germany and Italy, where she met Norwegian painter Anders Castus Svarstad. They married in 1912 and had three children. In 1919 they separated, and Undset moved to Lillehammer, Norway.

Kristin Lavransdatter and The Master of Hestviken

Undset then created what is considered her masterpiece, the trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter (1920–22). Set in medieval Norway, the trilogy consists of Kransen (1920; The Bridal Wreath; U.K. title, The Garland), Husfrue (1921; The Mistress of Husaby), and Korset (1922; The Cross). Though the medieval climate of the novel is strikingly evoked, it is still a story of a woman’s fate, portraying the proud, independent Kristin’s growth, from childhood through her coming-of-age and her marriage to a charming but irresponsible man into a strong but humble and self-sacrificing woman. Both in this and in the four-volume historical novel Olav Audunssøn (1925–27; The Master of Hestviken), religious subjects such as sin, morality, redemption, and humans’ relationship to God are prominent, reflecting Undset’s preoccupation with such matters. It is these two works that were singled out by the Nobel Prize committee when she was presented with the prize for literature in 1928.

Religious conversion and later works

In 1924 Undset’s marriage to Svarstad was dissolved, and she converted to Roman Catholicism. Four years later she became a lay Dominican. In her later novels, in which she returned to contemporary themes, her new religion continues to play an important role. These include Gymnadenia (1929; The Wild Orchid), Den brænnende busk (1930; The Burning Bush), Ida Elisabeth (1932), and Den trofaste hustru (1936; The Faithful Wife). Undset also published essay collections about saints and martyrs, the best known of which is Etapper: ny række, 1934; Stages on the Road, which features profiles of Catalan mystic Ramon Llull, Italian St. Angela Merici, English Jesuit priest Robert Southwell, and English martyr St. Margaret Clitherow.

(Read about other Catholic authors in Britannica’s essay on the Catholic imagination.)

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Exile and resistance work during World War II

During the Nazi occupation of Norway, Undset fled the country and spent the remainder of World War II in the United States, lecturing and writing on behalf of her war-torn country and its government-in-exile. During this time she wrote and edited several books for children, including Lykkelige dager (1942; Happy Times in Norway), which came about after a suggestion by then first lady Eleanor Roosevelt that exiled authors write stories in which Americans could learn about the lives of children in other countries. Undset returned to Norway in 1945.

Honors and posthumous works

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Undset was honored by the Norwegian government with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav in 1947. Among her works that were published posthumously are a biography of St. Catherine of Siena (1951) and a collection of her articles and speeches from wartime (1952).